


Hero

by Trinket2018



Series: The Unspoken Directive [3]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Technology, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Goa'uld (Stargate), Humor, Kidnapping, M/M, Mission Fic, Possession, Sexual Content, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-16 01:37:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13625817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trinket2018/pseuds/Trinket2018
Summary: The boys are possessed… again!





	Hero

**Author's Note:**

> Part 3 of the ‘Unspoken Directive’ (Following ‘Trio’ & ‘Ghost’). Slashing mythology. This is now serial slash. (You know, I could have *sworn* I only had one of these in me…) DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1, the characters and universe are the property of Kawoosh Productions, Showtime/Viacom, Sony/MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions and the Sci-Fi Channel. No copyright infringement is intended. I have absolutely no right to be playing with them or their universe. I just gotta. I promise to get nothing out of it but personal satisfaction. Gilgamesh *has* to be public domain by now. CATEGORY: Adventure, AU, Humor. RATING: NC-17 for profanity, violence & consensual m/m. Jack/Daniel, Gilgamesh/Enkidu. SPOILERS: Set early 5th Season, pre-5-21-Meridian (where Daniel dies/ascends). WARNINGS: Violence. Minor character death.

Å 

Movement. Rest. 

The one who held the Ghost Keeper device of the Ancients was a woman. She had been a Goa’uld host once, but her Beast had died within. He wondered briefly how that had happened: the ways he knew to kill a symbiote without harming the host were few, and none easy to come by. 

In the distance, separated by many walls, floors, doors, was another slave of the Goa’uld, a Jaffa. But the others abiding in this place were all human. And this was Earth. He was increasingly certain of that. Home. After all the ages… But so different.

He reached for his beloved. But there was nothing to touch in this small silver jar. Enkidu hadn’t made an effort to reach back in countless long years. Perhaps he had faded to nothing. Perhaps the madness that had seized him in this prison still kept him locked in a tighter cell of his own devising. It had been much harder for Enkidu, sealed in this deathless, body-less nothingness. He had been a child of the wild, raised running with the antelope, eating grass and breaking the hunters’ traps, in the sun and the wind and the rain. To be reduced to this… no more than a puff of breath in a jar… it had broken him. 

Whatever kept the other silent, it had been so very lonely, waiting without him… so painful, to have to mourn a loss that was not death… worse even than his own death was the loss of his beloved. 

Outside, he heard them speaking, a dialect he had heard before, but did not know well. It was the Tau’ri tongue. Earth again, if he needed more proof. The Beast Marduk had told him of the Tau’ri.

In the beginning, the Beast had wanted to gloat over its enemies, defeated, executed, trapped in this small silver sphere, and yet, the only mortals who had dared to defy It, and even come close to defeating It. And, too, the Beast had loved to parade up and down before them in Its stolen body. Gloating. It so loved to gloat. But, over the long stretch of years, the Beast forgot that they were enemies, remembered only that every victory, every defeat, every joy and sorrow, every fear and fury, every moment high and low, held no meaning unless brought before the Ghost Keeper. It told them everything. So he knew the usurping false gods, the hated Goa’uld, had powerful enemies: he knew of the Asgard and the Tok’ra, and, very recently, the Tau’ri, the people of Earth emerged from long hiding to challenge the Goa’uld wherever they went. 

But, in spite of all, this could still be some cunning Goa’uld trick, to an end as inconceivable and subtle as it would be savage and cruel. He remained silent. 

Once, he had feared death above all things, sought to cheat the mortality that was his birth-right. Now he knew his mistake.

Å 

Jack found Daniel in the observation deck overlooking the lab, watching Sam and Dr. Fraiser investigate the small round mirror-surfaced ball, about the size of a grapefruit, that had been stolen from a Goa’uld named Marduk, and passed to them for study by the Tok’ra agent Korra. They called it the Marduk Sphere, but apparently the proper name for these mysterious devices of the Ancients was Ghost Keeper, although they had yet to discover what the things actually did. 

He stood regarding the younger man solemnly. Daniel was engrossed. That was bad. It often took a nuclear blast to pry him loose when he got like this over something, and Jack needed his full attention. Yes, needed was the right word. Definitely.

Maybe he shouldn’t try this at work. But after-hours with Daniel, all he could think about was getting them both naked as soon as possible and trying to break through the physical barriers between them. He’d been through three of Daniel’s books on the subject, and they had been absolutely no help. He had a few more to try, but really, he should have his head examined for even thinking a book would do him any good. There was really no substitute for hands-on first hand experience. Which posed certain problems of the “no goddamned fucking idea what the hell they were doing” variety. At last resort, he planned a foray to the gay biker bar on the outskirts of town, and damned to how it would look to any NID spooks keeping track of his activities. But that would *definitely* be a solo fact-finding mission. The *last* place he wanted Daniel to be was a gay biker bar, walking in there with wide, curious anthropologist-at-work eyes, hanging out the “we’re peaceful explorers here to learn about your culture” welcome mat, and looking like a cream-filled, sugar-coated dessert. Sweet and rich. Like he looked right now, in fact. Well, pretty much the whole time, to be perfectly truthful.

Daniel had no idea he was there. The archeologist had his hand wrapped around the shaft of the microphone, watching intently as Janet and Sam tried to prod some kind of reaction out of the small silver sphere in the isolation case. Jack struggled not to see that amazingly sensitive and supple, surprisingly strong hand on another item, similar in shape and size to the microphone, but made of hot hard flesh, attached to him.

“I don’t know, Daniel. There’s just no reaction at all,” Sam sounded dejected, even a little offended. Jack shifted uncomfortably, concentrating hard on hockey plays – no, not ‘hard on’, *not* ‘hard on’ – thinking how wrong his 2IC could possibly be.

“Sam, we all saw what one of these things can do, on P3R909. The Hesiu said it holds the souls of the dead.”

“Well, this one must be empty, then,” Janet guessed, trading a skeptic’s look with Sam that implied “yeah, sure, souls of the dead. Only Daniel could swallow that.”

“Then why did Marduk guard it so closely for so long?” Daniel argued. “Korra told us Marduk kept it in a locked vault, guarded by no less than two Jaffa at any time, day and night, and it’s been in his possession for hundreds of years, that we know of for certain, maybe for millennia. That has to mean something.”

“But Daniel,” Sam objected, “we’ve had this one for over a week, subjected it to every test we can think of, with absolutely no results. If it is a vessel to hold some kind of energy, we haven’t hit on the type or frequency. We’ve tried to see inside, get inside, and no probe, no instrument shows any reaction at all.”

“Well of course you’re not going to see inside, Sam. The surface is reflective.”

Jack could tell, just by the way Sam and ol’ Doc Fraiser froze and stared at each other, that, once again, Daniel’s unique brand of lateral thinking had triggered one of those “Doh!” moments in the two staggeringly brilliant women.

“Reflective,” Sam growled, shaking her head. “Of course.”

“We need a passive probe, detect what’s coming out, not going in. Hook up an EEG maybe? If the energy inside is some form of residual personality imprint, it might register as firing neurons would.”

“Let’s try it.”

An airman arrived in the observation deck then, swerved warily around Jack, with a package for Daniel.

“Oh, terrific! Thanks, Wayne. Oh, Jack, you’re here! Um… why?”

Not the time, or the place. “Just curious. How’s it going?”

“Not too well, but we have a few more avenues to try.”

“And yours is…?” Jack asked, watching Daniel’s hand twitch on the brown-paper parcel, in *not* opening it.

“Oh. This? Um… just… just a notion. Look, this is going to be pretty boring, no guarantees anything will happen, why don’t you go get a coffee and a table at the commissary, and Sam and I will join you for lunch—“

“Lunch was two hours ago.”

“Was it? Well then… we’ll probably knock off in… uh…”

“Daniel.”

“Jack?”

“What’s in the package.” Daniel in waffle-mode made him very curious, and very nervous. He *hated* that. If Daniel was dragging his feet opening that package in front of him, he wanted to know why. And why Daniel had gone beet red. Of all Daniel’s looks, embarrassed was one of the most adorable, and it goosed his already high hormonal level. No wonder he had taken to wearing athletic supporters under his boxers pretty much 24/7 at the SGC.

“Is there any chance I can get out of this?” Daniel asked.

“Not even one.”

Daniel sighed, and tore off the brown paper covering… a store-bought Ouija board in a box.

For a moment, there was complete silence between them.

Then Jack said, “Nope. I can’t think of one damned thing to say that even comes close to being as funny as you sending out for this thing in the first place. Doc Fraiser’s going to give it an EEG and you’re going to try a Ouija board?”

“Well, how would you suggest we try to communicate with the dead?”

“What, apart from the fact that I *wouldn’t*?”

A crash cart arrived from the infirmary. Dr. Fraiser applied a couple of pads to the shiny sphere’s surface and turned on the machine. She calibrated, adjusted, and then stared at the monitor, Sam coming to peer over her shoulder.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Janet whispered.

“Holy Hannah,” Sam breathed as well. “It looks like two patterns in there.”

“Yes, but one… if it were a living person, I’d say he, she or it was in coma, pretty near catatonic. Beta rhythms only. The other… active and healthy.”

“But they aren’t singing,” Daniel said over the microphone. “According to the Hesiu, the dead within a Ghost Keeper are aware, conscious, able to ‘see’ and ‘hear’, and they sing. Is the healthy one asleep?”

“Not according to this,” Janet denied. “So now what? We have two someones inside, and no way to communicate with them.”

“That’s your cue,” Jack told his lover. Daniel picked up his box and trotted out to the stairs leading down to the lab doors. Jack followed behind, shaking his head. It never ceased to amaze him, the high tolerance Daniel had to the possibility of ridicule, and his willingness to persevere in the face of repeated failure. Must be the scientist in him. 

Lucky for them both, actually, given their recent experiments in sex had met with indifferent success. As far as he was concerned, all Daniel had to do was breathe heavily to push him over the edge, but Daniel was having a lot more trouble. 

The younger man just had way too many inhibitions, most of them a legacy of a difficult and traumatic childhood. Witnessing the death of his parents at the tender age of eight and then having his grandfather desert him left him with abandonment issues up the wazoo, his sense of self-worth getting a further kick in the teeth as a ward of the state for the next eight years. His beloved wife’s abduction by the Goa’uld, long captivity as a host, and subsequent death had left scars the man might never get over. And as if all that weren’t enough, Daniel also had the nightmare of sexual and physical abuse in one of the foster homes to contend with. If Jack could, he would have killed “the Major” again for what he did to an eight-year-old Daniel, let alone his many other crimes. All in all, it was a wonder Daniel wasn’t more screwed up than he was. 

But, Jack reflected with a sigh, in picking his way across the mine-field that was their new relationship – and he could not *believe* he had voluntarily used that word even in an internal monologue – he was finding it almost impossible to get past Daniel’s nerves, his own uncertainty, and the fact that they were both new and awkward with this whole gay sex thing. Walking on eggs, blind leading the blind, groping in the dark… pick a euphemism for failing to get Daniel sufficiently excited in bed, and keep him that way long enough for them both to get off, on anything like a consistent basis. And they hadn’t even got to the good stuff yet.

Jack had found a surprise ambush attack worked best on Daniel. Anything that got him off-balance so shock shut down the archeologist’s scary-smart brain long enough for his incredibly sensitive, passionate and responsive body to take over and do the driving. 

But Jack had the horrible feeling that at this precarious stage, the two of them were playing a nasty game of emotional chicken… each wondering when the other one would give up on the whole thing as a bad idea and dump the other. 

Recent events on P3R909 had not helped any. Daniel had got himself in a mess that could have turned fatal. For a few ghastly hours, Jack thought it had been fatal. Now Daniel was watching him like a hawk for any sign that it had been too much for him. So he was trying to down-play the whole thing, when he really wanted to scream in outrage. How did Daniel *dare* to take risks, any risks at all, when… when he meant so much to the man who loved him? 

Well, Jack swore under his breath, he sure as hell wasn’t going to be the first to blink, and he’d fight like hell if Daniel tried to duck and run. 

“I had this idea,” Daniel began when he got to the lab, unwrapping the board and pulling it out, setting up board and planchet inside the isolation box next to the Ghost Keeper. “Go ahead, laugh. Jack’s already had his giggle, so you two go ahead and get it over with.”

Janet held up her hands in surrender, grinning, but saying nothing, and Sam could only shrug. “It has as good a chance as anything I’ve tried,” she admitted.

Then four reasonably intelligent, scientifically trained adults stood and stared at a Ouija board, waiting for something to happen. And nothing did.

“Um… maybe we can make a physical connection between the planchet and the sphere?” Sam suggested, and Daniel smiled gratefully at her for taking his idea seriously. They took another wire lead from the crash cart, attached one pad to the sphere, the other to the planchet. And stood waiting.

So why was every one of them so flabbergasted when the damn thing moved, Jack wondered? Daniel, their first contact expert, was the one to try to speak to the small silver ball. Did he feel as foolish as he looked? Probably not, Jack acknowledged. Communication was Daniel’s life. He’d try and communicate with a stone, given the slightest hint it might answer back. He’d tried to communicate with water once. Water, for crying out loud. And, because it was Daniel, the water had answered. Okay, so the response was grabbing him and taking him hostage, but that was same old same old, so did most aliens they encountered. So a little mirror ball was nothing, and at least it was *unlikely* it would make a grab for *his* archeologist.

“Hello. My name is Dr. Daniel Jackson. You’re on Earth, the world of the Tau’ri. Can you hear me? Can you understand me?”

He ran through a few other likely languages, Jack assumed with the same basic message. This could take a while, Jack thought. Daniel knew a *lot* of languages. Then one of them struck pay-dirt. The planchet began to vibrate, but didn’t seem to know where to go. Daniel ran out of the lab, leaving the rest of them staring, wondering where the hell he had gone. When he returned, he had a piece of chalk. He lifted the planchet off the board, and for the next few minutes, scribbled little squiggles across the surface of the board. Then he replaced the planchet.

“It’s Sumerian,” Daniel explained. “Whoever’s inside understands Sumerian. The language of Babylon, dead for almost three thousand years. I just added some cuneiform symbols. Now we just have to pray whoever is inside is literate…” He spoke again, and the planchet moved.

“We’re recording all this, right?” Jack asked, as the small triangle of plywood flew around the board.

Daniel grabbed a clipboard and a pen, and scrawled down the message, watching earnestly, that cute little crinkle frown forming over the bridge of his nose, as he followed the rapid transit of the planchet. Then his jaw dropped.

“Oh my God… he… he says he’s the fifth king of Uruk. Uruk was a city on the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia. The fifth king of the first dynasty of Uruk after the Flood was… Gilgamesh.”

Sam shook her head. “It’s claiming to be Gilgamesh? *The* Gilgamesh?”

“A friend of yours?” Jack asked, mystified. So was Dr. Fraiser.

“The oldest intact secular poem we have ever found written down in any language is the Epic of Gilgamesh, about the adventures of a hero-king of ancient Mesopotamia, dating from around the third millennium BC,” Daniel explained. “The first human hero we know of.”

“But Daniel, that’s just not possible,” Sam protested.

“Why not?”

“Well, think about it. Even if the energy traces in this sphere are that old, how could it possibly be the one man, the one name, we would recognize after all this time? That would be like… extracting blood from a chance mosquito found frozen in amber, and getting a Tyrannosaurus Rex first time. How *could* it be Gilgamesh? Even if there really was such a historical person--”

“There was. His burial temple was found in the ruins of Uruk, laid out exactly as it was described in the Epic.”

“Well there, you see? He’s dead and buried, has been for four thousand years. How *can* he be… in this thing?”

“Why don’t we ask him?” Jack suggested over the shoulders of the others. All three of them turned to stare at him, shocked to realize he was still there. 

Daniel spoke gibberish – sorry, Sumerian – to the thing, but the planchet remained still. Tired, or frustrated, or just unwilling to say any more? There was no way to know. But the planchet came to rest on the word “No”, and the EEG monitor showed the one active pattern turning quiescent.

“I don’t think we’re going to get any more out of it right now,” Dr. Fraiser admitted. “Why don’t we take a break and… good grief, we’ve missed lunch. We’ve been at this for hours. Let’s get a coffee and see if we can come up with a strategy for figuring out what we have here.”

“What you’ve got is a dead Babylonian in a jar,” Jack said somewhat dismissively, just to see Daniel bristle and turn to him with burning eyes.

But all Daniel would say, in a *very* mild tone, was, “Sumerian. Not Babylonian.”

With superhuman restraint, Jack neglected to finish the Ghostbusters quote.

//Deep within, a spark stirred.//

“It may be something else,” Sam hinted darkly. “If there is an intelligence inside the Marduk Sphere,” she continued, still unwilling even to use the name the Hesiu had given their version of the device, “it may be mildly telepathic. In which case, it could be telling us exactly what we want to hear. We need to find out more before we take anything it may say at face value.”

//Woman. Witch. Hide.//

“So we want to hear we’ve got a dead Babylonian in a jar?” Jack quipped even more casually, leaning on the isolation box, arms crossed on his chest, watching Daniel’s reaction with great interest. The archeologist’s sensitive mouth had thinned to a near-invisible line. Hah. Got him. Now just reel him in.

“Let’s all get a coffee. My treat,” Janet interposed, sensing trouble looming and very carefully not looking at either one of the men.

“I’m in,” Sam agreed, as quick as her friend to see the smoke signals. “Daniel?”

“In a minute,” Daniel answered, fixing Jack with a malevolent look.

The women retreated in disorder, anything to get out of the way of what promised to be a memorable skirmish. And as they headed down the corridor, Janet said, “I’m taking bets right now. How long will this one go?”

“Janet, will you bet on *anything*?”

Leaving the two men alone in the lab. Daniel leaned over to the console and deliberately turned off the remote control taping equipment and security monitors. He placed himself on the opposite side of the isolation box from Jack, also deliberately.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m listening.”

Jack peered into the isolation box with every indication of interest. “Hm? Don’t know what you mean.”

“This is me, Jack, remember? You wanted my attention. Okay, you got it. What’s on your mind?”

Jack scowled, putting the planchet back. “You stood me up for lunch. And breakfast. For a dead Babylonian in a jar.”

“Ah. The frontal attack. The best defense is a good offense. Look, Jack, it’s your career on the line here, not to mention your right to walk around free outside of Leavenworth, remember that too? Don’t you think it might be a good idea to be a little more… discrete, around the SGC, at least?”

“Fine for you to say. Easy for you, isn’t it? Just bury yourself in your work, and forget everything and everyone else.”

Oops. Maybe he went a little too far. Daniel blinked, stared, mouth opening twice on things he tried to say and couldn’t. But he developed that immensely sexy blush, his cheeks taking on a rosy glow. Jesus, he was beautiful. Angry, sad, happy, guilty, annoyed… he was just so goddamned beautiful it hurt.

“So help me, Jack, if this is just another tactic to get me hot and bothered…”

“Is it working?”

“Hell, yes!”

“Then how come you’re on the other side of this damned sphere thing?”

“The best defense is not letting you get anywhere near me right now. Anyone could come in. You’re just going to have to save it for tonight.”

“Coward.”

“Ya think?”

//The words meant nothing. No words were needed. The ether flamed with the force of their passion for each other. The wild one, the warrior, was desperate, hungry, his body in tune with his desires. The other, the scholar, thought too much, heated by desire only to be chilled by thoughts. That was the way water cracked stone. So he had told his own beloved, time out of mind. He was drawn to the warrior, the wisdom of the body. Simple. Straight-forward. Clean. Pure.//

Okay, so maybe this *was* the right time and place. Not like he was going to get a better opening, anyway. “I’ve been thinking, Daniel. About this whole career thing. I was supposed to retire five years ago. I think maybe it’s time I gave it another shot.”

That shook Dr. Jackson, and then some. “Retire? You? Leave the SGC?”

“Nobody ever said you were slow on the uptake. Yes, Daniel. Retire. Me. Leave the SGC. And I was thinking you could come with me.”

Daniel snagged a chair with a blindly groping hand and dropped heavily into it. “You’re not kidding about this, are you?”

“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought lately.”

“Well excuse me if I feel like I’ve been blind-sided by this. I had no idea… Damn it, Jack, you might have given me some warning!”

“I am giving you some warning. I’m telling you now. We’ve been doing this a long time, Danny. I’ve just about had enough. Doc Fraiser keeps telling me my knees are giving out. I’m ready to believe her. Lately, I’ve been finding it hard to take all the crap the military dishes out. I respect Hammond. He’s the best CO I’ve ever worked under. But the rest of that crowd, at the Pentagon, at Washington, the NID games, not to mention waltzing around with the Russians, the Tok’ra, the Tollan… I’m tired of it. I never was any good at the political jockeying. I’ve gone about as far up the chain of command as I’m going to, considering the enemies I’ve made, and the number of times ‘insubordinate’ appears on my records. And now that ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ is like a fucking thorn in the side… We’ve done our bit and then some for Mother Earth. Saved Her, how many times now? Maybe it’s time to give someone else a shot.”

“This isn’t about retirement. It isn’t even about… us. Keeping whatever the hell it is we’re doing secret. This is about P3R909.”

“Now, Daniel—“

“It is, isn’t it?”

“That’s part of it, hell, yes! How many goddamned times do I have to watch you die, Daniel? Shot, zatted, hit over the head, crushed under rocks, lying on a goddamned infirmary cot going flat-line on me, blown to hell and back… You seem to have the idea that you’re immortal, but believe me, you aren’t. Even you have to run out of luck one of these days! I don’t want to be around to have to watch it again. Jesus, Daniel, every time you go through that Gate, it’s like you’re looking for a new way to put yourself in harm’s way.”

“It’s no different for you, or Sam, or Teal’c.”

“Yes. It is different. I don’t know how, it just is. Maybe because… I love you.”

Daniel couldn’t look him in the eye. Oh, that wasn’t good. Because when he did lift his dark blue eyes, they were full of pain. Oh hell. That was even worse.

“You’re doing this because of me, aren’t you? If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be talking this way. I know you wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Jack, but there’s no way I can leave. What I’m doing, what we’re doing, is too important to too many people. You do this, you do it alone.”

“Even if I asked you?” Jack suggested quietly, staring fixedly at the mirrored sphere. It showed his own face, warped out of shape, barely recognizable, weirdly upside down, staring back at him. Like another person entirely. Another person without all the fucking stress he had to put up with these days, living another life without all the fucking complications. Something a hell of a lot more simple. Straight-forward. Clean. Pure.

“Don’t. Please, Jack. Don’t make it an ultimatum.”

No. Obviously not. He’d lose. Maybe he just needed to give Danny a little time, to get used to the idea. 

“Okay. Fine. So we go on with the sneaking around, the dangerous missions, the political crap, saving the world, you getting yourself shot, ribboned, zatted and captured by execution-happy natives every other week. Business as usual. At least until my knees give out for good.”

Daniel watched a moment, then said, “How about we join the girls for coffee?”

“You drink too much of that stuff, you know.”

“Or not enough. Coming?”

“No. Got to meet Teal’c in the gym in… hell, five minutes ago. I’ll have to catch you later. And, Danny… I *will* catch you later.”

Daniel smiled mistily. “I’m counting on it, Jack.”

The archeologist left the lab. It looked a lot like a retreat under fire. 

Jack sighed, staring at the small silver ball. Basically, he was losing out to a dead Babylonian in a jar. A ruin on another world. A book of the Ancients. A tricky translation that would probably turn out to be a thousand-year-old laundry list. Apparently, Jack had nothing to offer that could compete.

What the hell was he complaining about? This was Daniel’s vocation. He lived for this stuff. Literally. Always had, always would, and Jack had no real desire to change that. The Work had kept Daniel involved, centered, sane, passionate, gave him a sense of purpose and identity and kept him committed to living when God knows his personal life was crap. It was just a crying shame that The Work was exactly what would get him killed one of these days, permanently and for real. And there was no way Jack could abandon him to it now, let him go on without backup. There was just one person Jack trusted enough for the vitally important job of protecting Daniel’s precious ass.

Jack studied his warped reflection in the sphere’s surface. His head tilted a little to one side. He lifted the lid on the isolation box, and reached inside. He pulled off the electrode pads, and picked up the sphere to stare into it. Funny. This is just what he always told Daniel and Carter *not* to do, play with mysterious alien artifacts. But Carter and the Doc had been messing with this for days, so what would be the harm? 

The reflection seemed to right itself, then tipped again. A flash of heat passed through Jack. There and gone. He took a deep, deep breath, and stood frozen, staring into the silver ball.

Å 

In the nearly empty commissary, Daniel sat down with Janet and Sam, a steaming coffee in his hand. The coffee pot had been on the burner since at least the last of the lunch crowd had left, which meant the boiled-down sludge that was left could probably dissolve boot leather. The two women had wisely avoided it in favor of soft drinks.

“Okay, so bring me up to speed here,” Janet begged. “Who is it you think we have in our Ghost Keeper, Daniel?”

Daniel struggled to shake the image of Jack, standing staring at the ball as he left. As if regarding an enemy, or a rival. It was a disturbing idea.

“We believe a king Gilgamesh actually existed, in the city state of Uruk, next door to Babylon, in ancient Mesopotamia, between two and three thousand years BC. He built the walls of the city that were famous in their time, and a ziggurat, a pyramid temple to the gods of Uruk. Gilgamesh was said to be son of a goddess and the third king of Uruk who was himself part god. That made him two thirds divine and one third mortal, according to the Sumerians. The divine part made him the strongest, most beautiful and wisest hero in the land. The mortal third meant that he would one day die. The Epic of Gilgamesh begins and ends with the words, ‘Gilgamesh the king, who knew the countries of the world. He was wise, he saw mysteries and knew secret things, he brought us a tale of the days before the Flood. He went a long journey, was weary, worn out with labor, and returning engraved on a stone the whole story.’ The stories in the Epic tell of his friendship with a wild man who was created to be his equal and his companion, Enkidu. They have adventures, discover new countries, fight giants and monsters and save Uruk from destruction.”

Janet grinned. “Gee, sounds like someone we know.”

Daniel smiled back. “When Enkidu dies, struck down by the gods for presuming too much, Gilgamesh is reminded of his own mortality, and goes looking for a way to escape death. The people he meets keep asking him, ‘Why do you come here, wandering over mountains, pastures and wilderness in search of the wind?’ and he answers, ‘How can I be silent, how can I rest, when Enkidu whom I love is dust and I too shall die and be laid in earth forever?’ But ultimately, what he finds is that he is mortal, there is no escape, and he just has to accept it.”

“But if it really is Gilgamesh in the sphere… maybe he found his escape after all.”

Sam shook her head. “Four thousand years caught in a little silver ball? I don’t call that much of an escape. Daniel, what’s the connection between Gilgamesh and Marduk?”

“There isn’t one. Not according to historical, archeological record. Marduk was part of a later pantheon of gods that came in with the Hittites a few centuries after Gilgamesh to supplant and replace the older Sumerian gods. At least, according to the official history, that’s what happened. But we now know that there was a Goa’uld, calling himself Marduk, wandering around Mesopotamia. If he was part of Ra’s inner circle as we suspect, he might have been in Uruk during the reign of Gilgamesh, even if there is no record of it.”

“That’s a bit of a stretch, Daniel,” Sam said. “A lot of ‘if’s’.”

“Maybe. But there’s one odd thing about the Epic of Gilgamesh. It always struck me, right from the first. I thought it just meant that there was a tablet or two missing from the different versions of the Epic we have from a variety of different sources, different times, different languages. But it’s the same glaring omission in every version.”

“And that is?” both ladies asked.

“Well, when Gilgamesh returns after his failure to find an escape from death, we get the tag line about him returning weary and writing the story on stone. Then the next tablet is his funeral. There’s never any story to tell us how he dies. We hear about Enkidu falling ill, wasting away and dying, or there’s a later alternate version where Enkidu journeys to the underworld to retrieve one of Gilgamesh’s prized possessions and is trapped there. But we never get a single line about the death of Gilgamesh himself. Just his funeral. Almost as if…”

“As if he didn’t die after all,” Sam finished.

Å 

“Jack?” called a voice from the other room.

Jack. Yes. Him. Me. And the voice. Known. Loved.

“Jack? I know you’re here. Your truck is parked at the curb outside and you forgot to lock the door again after you picked the lock. Why didn’t you just use your key? Jack?”

He stood motionless before the mirror in the darkened bedroom, the constricting, awkward clothing shucked to the floor at his feet. He stared at the shadowy reflection. Yes. He knew the shape of the face, the wide shoulders, the faint track of scars, almost invisible in the low light, the muscles under the skin shaped by a hard, physical life and a rigorous training practice every warrior knew in his bones was necessary as breathing. It was life. Survival. He brushed the light dusting of hair curling across his chest with a frown. It wasn’t… wrong… was it? Nothing… missing?

“Jack? Where… oh. There you… oh.”

His beloved stood in the open doorway, hesitating. “Starting without me?” he asked, a little weakly.

His beloved was a silhouette in the doorway, lit from the lamp in the other room, a shape more familiar, dearly loved. Tall, almost as tall as he, younger, more slender, not so hard, no need to be so hard. With fine, golden skin not so scarred. Gentle, elegant, learned hands and clear, true, intelligent eyes. Beautiful. Friend. Brother. The man he loved. The man he would fight to the death to defend. His beloved.

He reached out his own hand, blunt, hard, calloused. “Come.” His own voice was a low, rough rumble. He saw it reflected in the fine shiver that went through his beloved. Stepping warily as a buck upon the open glade, he ventured closer. Then with gathering confidence. Then with bold desire.

“I was worried. The way you just walked out this afternoon. Teal’c said you never met him in the gym. And you left without letting me know… Look, I know we left things... badly. We should talk. You… You okay?”

“Hush,” he said, not wanting to hear. Taking the beautiful sensitive mouth in his. Savoring it, devouring it, hungry as if he had been waiting many thousands of years…

“Whoa! Hey…” the other protested, panting, pulling away. “You… you sure you’re okay?”

Some fleeting memory struggled to emerge. His beloved didn’t know… had forgotten… It was hard for him. New. Troubling. There were ghosts of old pain haunting him, disappointments, loss and grief, overwhelming the offer of new love. He needed to be seduced. Slowly. Reminded. Gently. Hunted like a wary, uncertain young buck venturing into open meadows.

“Here,” he said, pulling his lover around and turning him to the mirror. They stood looking into the dark reflection, into each other’s eyes, only the softest shadows and planes visible in the darkness. But then a harsh flash of light off metal… He took the wire thing off his beloved’s face, and set it aside. He bent to kiss the strong column of neck before him, and saw his lover’s head tip back, exposing that beautiful throat with absolute trust and the beginning of surrender, a soft sigh whispering from quivering lips.

Slowly, he reached around to pull apart the clothing that covered, protected, hid, denied. Small hard objects burst and pinged and the garment came away. And then warm, velvet, golden skin was his.

So hungry. So hungry for so long. And suddenly, finally, having no doubts, no questions, no hesitation, knowing exactly what to do as if for the first time. He opened his mouth on his lover’s shoulder, teeth scraping, tongue rasping to taste an essence so new and so old. The low moan from his beloved’s throat resonated through him. The muscles were tense, resistant yet, but the promise of release was there. His hands stole lower, met with more clothing, held by a strip of leather… He fumbled with it briefly, and the other’s hands were there, competing with his till the offending garments dropped away, and they stood naked together. He clasped his beloved to him, let him feel the force of hard, urgent, desperate desire. When the other would have turned, he held him, fixing his eyes in the mirror.

“Look at me,” he pleaded. “Beloved. Trust in me. Let me love you. I beg.”

“Jack, I…”

“Hush!” he choked out, not wanting to hear. “Hush. Beloved. Trust in me. I would never, ever, hurt you.”

“I know you don’t want to…”

“Then let me show you the depths of my love. Let me take you where only I can. Let me show you wonders and glories past all compare. They are here, in my hands.” All the time he caressed the heated velvet smoothness of his beloved buck’s body, soothing, arousing. Wide chest, hard nipples, the ridges over the ribs, flat stomach, the velvet curve beneath the navel, the hollows inside the hips, flanks beginning to shudder with passion. Sheen of sweat beginning to glow on the heated golden skin. Stroking with all the desire within him, knowing every tender place on his lover’s body, where he loved most to be touched and how.

Acceptance, and excitement, began to shine in the midnight dark eyes staring back at him in the mirror. The other’s chest raised and fell with deeper breaths, and he could feel the heated flush coming to the flesh beneath his fingers, his palms. And, rising rampant, the last betrayer of passion. He smiled. It was all the encouragement he required. His hands drifted to firm buttocks.

A moment of doubt assailed his precious quarry.

“Look at me,” he begged urgently. “You know me. Trust in me, beloved.”

The moment passed, as if the shadow had never been.

“It is you and I, here and now. A moment and an eternity in one. You and I, in one. Now is forever.”

There was something… something in the top drawer before them, ready to hand. A cool, smooth unguent, readily spread. An oiled finger tested and tried and eased through, a playful, erotic wriggle, circling and widening. And as he clasped his beloved so close he knew every gasped intake of breath, every shudder, every tightening and easement in every smooth muscle.

“Oh God Jack… which book are you *reading*?”

The words meant nothing to him. The tone of dazed wonderment was all. Slowly, he began to seduce with two fingers while his other hand fell to cradle his lover’s manhood. He kissed hungrily along the arc of neck and shoulder before him. He worked with care and infinite patience, a hunter’s patience, willing to stalk the prey forever if need required. And he so needed. Had needed forever. Would need to the end of time. To death and beyond. Time was meaningless where the blessed ache was so strong, so sure. Lifeblood pounding as he could feel it pulsing in his beloved’s throat beneath his lips now, could feel it hammering in his own heart.

Their eyes locked together in the mirror, he knew when his beloved felt that first divine touch by the way his eyes flew wide, the way that perfect body convulsed and shivered. The cry came then, not the agony of pain but the surprised shock of pleasure beating sure, true, undeniable, gathering strength to it like a tide or a storm. And while his beloved’s eyes dwelled on his, remembering all that had gone before, all that lay ahead, all that was here with them now, he eased in the third finger and once more touched the heart of desire deep within. He reached and drew shuddering, clenching, writhing bliss from the other.

“Oh God, Jack… Oh God… I…”

“Hush. Hush. Look at me. See only me. Know only me, here and now, making myself one with you.”

“Yes… Now. Now!”

He spread more unguent upon his hand and wrapped it around his straining, pulsing, burning, granite-hard shaft. He knew when his beloved was ready, bending forward, a hand jabbing out to brace against the mirror, legs widening to offer himself. He fixed his lover’s eyes in the dark reflection, lodged himself carefully. With skill remembered in his bones, he plied his way deep to the entrance to pleasures. Slowly he moved in, resolute, inexorable, bodies straining close, sweating, heated to steaming point, both wanting, needing, united. Bonded. Heat branding them as the tight passage opened to him, as his beloved opened to him, let him in. He surged deeper into the tight, hot, glorious passage, the red rage of lust upon him at last, sweeping all before it but the light in his lover’s eyes. Desperately, he reached around to grip his beloved’s manhood. His beloved rocked back and forth, thrusting into his hand, bucking against his pelvis, crying and moaning and arching, but all the while hands slapped against the mirror, arms braced, supporting them both.

It came like a storm between them, crashing, thunderous, violent, power and flaring lightening showering around them.

Å 

Something was wrong. Daniel knew that before the telephone cut through the uneasy fog of his half-asleep mind. He groped for the receiver, wondering what the hell was making his flesh crawl this way.

“Daniel?” It was Sam. She sounded…

“Oh God. What’s wrong?”

“It’s the Colonel. He… he went AWOL half an hour ago. Dialed an address, overpowered the security guard at the Gate and… went through. General Hammond sent a team after him, to the address he dialed, but he had already gone on. We… we don’t know where he is. And he didn’t take a GDO with him. He can’t come back.”

That’s what was wrong. His bed was empty. Cold. Jack should be in it, and he wasn’t. And now…

“Give me half an hour. I’ll be right in.”

“There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing any of us can do. I just thought you should know.”

Daniel shut his eyes hard. And he realized something he should have seen last night, even as blinded by passion as he had been.

When they finally lay upon the bed in exhaustion, sated and twined around each other, Jack had panted out words of completion and love. But they hadn’t been English. They had been in ancient Sumerian.

The language of Gilgamesh.

Å 

“Daniel, you can’t. You don’t know for sure…” Sam pleaded.

“I know, Sam. That wasn’t Jack who came to see me last night. Or… it wasn’t all Jack. I should have guessed… I just… Something must have happened after I left him alone in the lab yesterday. I think… someone passed into him.”

“What? Who?”

“I have no idea. But there’s a way to find out.”

“No. No. You don’t know what it will do to you. We could lose you too.”

Sam argued all the way from Daniel’s office to the lab, with Teal’c following them both like a large, silent shadow, grimly impassive. Janet was already in the lab, waiting for them.

“Sam? I’m ashamed to say I’m beginning to think Daniel might be right about the sphere. Yesterday we detected two distinct EEG patterns. Today, there’s just the one. And since I got here, the Ouija has been moving on its own, without being connected to anything. And it isn’t speaking in Sumerian any more. Look.”

They stood and watched the planchet vibrating, swirling between the letter ‘E’ and the word ‘No’. General Hammond arrived a moment later, having been called by Dr. Fraiser.

Once the General absorbed the argument between Daniel and Sam, and the evidence of the Ghost Keeper with his own eyes, he sighed, shaking his head. “Of course it’s a case of possession. You people spend more time possessed or under alien influences, then you do in your right senses! Very well. Something inside this alien artifact took over Colonel O’Neill and left with him. But there is still plainly something left. Any ideas how we communicate with it? Safely!” he added forcefully, a restraining hand held up in Daniel’s far too eager face.

“The Hesiu believe the spirits within the Ghost Keeper see and hear everything around them,” Daniel said. “Obviously, they understand too. Believe me, the ancient Sumerians did not speak English, and some… presence inside this Ghost Keeper does.”

“And you still believe this presence to be the legendary hero, Gilgamesh.”

“Well, I believe that’s who tried to talk to us yesterday. Whether he left with Jack or is still inside…”

The Ouija planchet slowed and aimed with more volition. 

‘Yes’ ‘H’ ‘E’ ‘R’ 

All turned to the gleaming Ghost Keeper. And Daniel stepped closer. He did not notice, if everyone else did, how close behind him Teal’c stood.

“Are you alone now?” Daniel asked.

‘Yes’

“Who are you?”

‘G’ ‘U’ ‘No’

“I don’t understand.”

‘M’ ‘G’ ‘I’ ‘L’ ‘G’ ‘A’…

“You are Gilgamesh.”

‘Yes’ ‘Yes’ ‘Yes’

“Who was in the Ghost Keeper with you? Who left with Jack O’Neill?”

‘E’ ‘N’ ‘K’ ‘I’ ‘D’ ‘U’ ‘space’ ‘H’ ‘E’ ‘L’ ‘P’

“Enkidu. It was Enkidu, your friend and companion. Help you do what?”

‘H’ ‘U’ ‘N’ ‘T’

“How do we help you do that?”

‘B’ ‘O’ ‘D’ ‘E’ ‘space’ ‘I’ ‘B’ ‘E’ ‘G’

“No! Absolutely not. No,” General Hammond declared.

“But sir—“ Daniel began.

“No. I can’t believe you would even suggest it, Dr. Jackson!”

“General Hammond. With respect—“

“But precious little of that.”

“Sir! How else can we hope to find Jack? Whether or not these spirits are the legendary Gilgamesh and Enkidu, they’ve been together in the Ghost Keeper for a very long time. This one knows better than anyone what the other will do.”

“Then he can tell us,” Hammond decided. And he turned to the sphere. “Where will your… companion take Colonel O’Neill?”

‘M’ ‘A’ ‘R’ ‘D’ ‘U’ ‘K’

“Of course,” Daniel groaned. “For revenge?”

‘Yes’ ‘&’ ‘B’ ‘O’ ‘D’ ‘E’

“I don’t understand. And a body?”

‘M’ ‘A’ ‘R’ ‘D’ ‘U’ ‘K’ ‘B’ ‘O’ ‘D’ ‘E’ ‘I’ ‘Z’ ‘M’ ‘E’

“Marduk’s host body… it’s yours?”

‘Yes’ ‘E’ ‘W’ ‘A’ ‘N’ ‘T’ ‘B’ ‘A’ ‘K’

“But… he can’t get it back, can he?” Sam groped. “The Tok’ra and the Tollan have technology to remove a Goa’uld symbiote, the Asgard’s Hammer can destroy one without harming the host if he can gate to Cimmeria or another Asgard-protected world, but… how does he think he’s going to do it?”

‘No’ ‘T’ ‘H’ ‘I’ ‘N’ ‘K’ ‘space’ ‘F’ ‘E’ ‘L’ ‘space’ ‘H’ ‘E’ ‘L’ ‘P’

“How?”

‘B’ ‘O’ ‘D’ ‘E’ ‘space’ ‘I’ ‘H’ ‘U’ ‘N’ ‘T’ ‘space’ ‘I’ ‘F’ ‘I’ ‘N’ ‘D’ ‘space’ ‘I’ ‘G’ ‘I’ ‘V’ ‘B’ ‘O’ ‘D’ ‘E’ ‘B’ ‘A’ ‘K’

Daniel stood very still, very close to the silver sphere. But when he made to reach out to it, Teal’c was suddenly there, gripping him around the chest in a bear hug and pulling him back. 

“Teal’c! What—“

“No, Danieljackson.”

“I wasn’t going—“

“No, Danieljackson.”

In frustration, Daniel turned to the General.

“Sir! I volunteer to—“

“No, Dr. Jackson. We have resources of our own we can use before we have to resort to something as crazy as this.”

“Indeed,” Teal’c declared, still gripping tight to Daniel. “I know O’Neill. I know how he thinks. I can hunt him.”

‘No’ ‘T’ ‘H’ ‘I’ ‘N’ ‘K’ ‘space’ ‘F’ ‘E’ ‘L’ ‘space’ ‘E’ ‘N’ ‘K’ ‘I’ ‘D’ ‘U’ ‘F’ ‘E’ ‘L’

“Major Carter,” the General turned to Sam. “Do we have any idea where Marduk is right now?”

“No, sir. But the Tok’ra might. They’ll be here this afternoon for the summit.”

“Very well. In the meantime, I am giving you and Dr. Fraiser and everyone else under my command for that matter, a direct order. Dr. Jackson is *not* to be allowed in this room. He can watch from the observation deck, but that’s as close as he’s going to get to this device. And I am ordering it placed under armed guard 24/7 until we decide what to do with it. My current inclination is to hand it over to the Tok’ra and let them figure out what the hell to do with it!”

‘No’ ‘No’ ‘No’

“Sir!” Daniel cried out.

“Sir—“ Major Carter protested at the same moment, wincing at the anguish in Daniel’s voice.

“Sir,” Daniel ventured again, struggling to make a point. “As far as we can tell right now, whatever, whoever is communicating with us from the device is from Earth. He claims, at least, to be a king, a hero, from four thousand years ago. Quite apart from the historical and cultural implications, he’s one of us. To turn the sphere over to the Tok’ra… seems wrong to me. He belongs here. Home. And he possesses knowledge we need to go after Jack.”

‘Yes’ ‘Yes’ ‘Yes’ ‘I’ ‘H’ ‘E’ ‘L’ ‘P’

“I’ll consider that argument,” the General said, not seeming unduly swayed by it, instead fixing Daniel with a heavy glare. “Dr. Jackson. God knows I have no authority to force you to comply with my commands. But I promise you, here and now, if you do succeed in defying me in this, I can and will court martial the person who let you get by them, demote them so low they’ll have to invent a new rank just for this, and ship what’s left of their sorry butt to Greenland. Is that understood?”

Whatever Daniel may have said to that died in his throat, and he stared at the shining mirrored ball. The planchet had grown still, stalled on the blank space. The intelligence within seemed as disheartened as he. At least for the moment.

General Hammond studied him with a hard look, suspicious of the ease of his apparent victory, then glanced at Teal’c, still holding tight to the archeologist. The Jaffa nodded in complete understanding. At last, Hammond gave a satisfied grunt, and left to assign an SF guard and brief them personally on their duties with respect to Dr. Jackson’s supervision when in the presence of the object.

“Teal’c, I think you can let me go now,” Daniel said in a defeated sigh. 

Almost reluctantly, his friend did so, and Daniel slid into a chair.

“Um, Daniel,” Sam ventured. “I don’t want to go to Greenland.”

He sighed again, staring dejected at the device. “Don’t worry, Sam. I’m not going to get anyone else in trouble.”

“Why doesn’t that make me feel better?” Janet wondered. “You know, Daniel, the General does have a point. There’s no way we can know what we’re really dealing with here.”

“But there’s an easy and simple way to find out.”

“Easy, simple and extremely dangerous,” pointed out Teal’c heavily. “I wish to find O’Neill as well, Danieljackson. But we do not need this device to do that.”

“Which pretty much makes it unanimous, doesn’t it?” Daniel stated flatly, resigned. “None of you like the idea.”

“Yes, well, that’s the problem with the Unspoken Directive,” Dr. Fraiser admitted, putting a consoling hand on Daniel’s shoulder.

“The what?” Daniel asked as his SG1 comrades sighed and shook their heads.

“That’s what Colonel O’Neill calls it,” Janet explained. “The SGC Unspoken Directive to keep you alive, safe, out of trouble, and reasonably happy. It kind of falls apart when keeping you alive, safe and out of trouble conflicts with keeping you reasonably happy. Something has to give. And I’m sorry, Daniel, but I think the General made the right call. And the Colonel would be the first to agree.”

Å 

“Possessed,” said Major General Jacob Carter retired, father of Major Samantha Carter and currently host of the Tok’ra leader Selmac, shaking his head. “What, *again*? And, no, let me guess. Daniel wants to take the other one up on his offer, get himself possessed too, and ride off to the rescue.”

“That’s about the size of it,” General Hammond agreed. He and Jacob sat in the General’s office over a couple of stiff whiskeys, waiting for the rest of the Tok’ra to arrive for the conference. Between them on the desk sat a small dull grey object with a little blue blinking light which effectively blocked any and every form of surveillance known on Earth, or off it.

Jacob continued shaking his head. “Why us, George?”

“I’ve never thought of a convincing answer for that one, Jake. So how’s your life going these days?”

Jacob laughed. “What, flipping around the universe, fighting evil, protecting the innocent, generally acting like the Lone Ranger? It certainly is a hell of a lot more interesting than being retired! You’ve got to give it that.”

George grinned. “Damn straight.”

“So tell me. Am I going to have to get used to having a Jaffa son-in-law?”

“That’s up to your daughter to decide. And at the moment…”

“She’s just in it for the sex?”

George struggled not to choke on his whiskey. “Um…”

“Yeah, well, Teal’c’s a hell of a lot more honorable than my little girl. He asked my permission to ‘court’ my daughter about three weeks ago. I said yes, of course. Well. Would any sane man say no to Teal’c? How about the other big romance? When they aren’t being possessed by alien artifacts, that is.”

George held out a hand and waggled it. 

“You don’t approve, I take it.”

“Hell, Jake, I don’t give a damn, one way or another, as long as neither of them forces me to have to acknowledge it officially.”

“You’re not concerned about impaired judgment?”

“Oh please. It’s not like Jack O’Neill could get any *more* protective of his team, however intimate he is with any of ‘em.” George was not about to tell Jake that, over the years, he was pretty sure Jack O’Neill had been intimate with *all* of his team members, at one time or another. Well, maybe not Teal’c. God knows, if Teal’c had introduced O’Neill to same-sex relations, it would have been a damned thorough lesson and his 2IC wouldn’t be having problems with it now. “It’s just that Jack and Dr. Jackson have got some issues to work out, and they’re not very good at it. Unresolved Sexual Tension is a bitch. Even worse now that they should actually be having the sex, if you can believe it. And while matters between them are still up in the air, the whole place is feeling the fallout. That’s what I object to. The sooner those two settle down and let us all get back to business, the better.” 

Jake considered his old friend over the rim of the glass.

“You think Jack will ditch the military over this?”

George sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know. It’s a possibility. I don’t think he gives a damn about those goddamned asinine regulations, and I would hope he knows me well enough to be sure I’d give him an honorable out if it comes to it… but…”

“But he wants Daniel out of harm’s way.”

“And the problem with that is…”

“Daniel won’t quit the SGC.”

“You’ve got it. Hell, Jake, I don’t want to lose either one of them. We both know what’s at risk here, and how much we need them. No one’s supposed to be irreplaceable, especially not in this command, but… Jack O’Neill and Dr. Daniel Jackson come damn close.” 

Jake nodded in sympathy as he finished his drink. His timing was perfect, for the Stargate began to rumble, and the intercom blared out with the news that the Tok’ra delegation had arrived. Jacob and General Hammond stood, straightened their respective uniforms, and went out to the gate room to meet the visitors.

Aldwin was among them, and Anise/Freya. Jacob had warned the General that Anise was feeling considerably miffed that their agent Korra had sent the Ghost Keeper artifact to the Tau’ri instead of back to her. Now she itched to get her hands on it.

When everyone was seated at the briefing room table, Daniel gave his presentation on the Ghost Keepers, the events on P3R909 that gave them their first indication of what the devices could do, their guess on the occupants of the Marduk Sphere, and the Epic of Gilgamesh as background. 

Jacob briefed them on what the Tok’ra knew of Marduk’s history. “There are actually two Goa’ulds who took that name. I guess they both liked it. They were at each other’s throats for centuries before one of them dropped out of sight, and we’re not sure where he went or what he’s up to now. The other one, the one Korra was studying, probably pre-dates Ra. He was never first rank among the System Lords, and he’s managed to stay out of really big feuds with the others. We think his strategy is to out-last the lot of them by staying under their radar, and he may actually succeed.” 

“We’ve heard of this Marduk, indirectly, at least,” Daniel supplied. “Kendra, the woman who escaped Goa’uld domination by gating to Cimmeria, freed by the Asgard device called Thor’s Hammer, was host to one of this Marduk’s offspring.”

Aldwin said, “We had a report from Korra soon after he parted from SG1. Marduk was furious at the loss of his Ghost Keeper. More, Korra said he seemed terrified. In a rare moment of weakness, Marduk revealed that his greatest, most powerful, most dangerous enemies had been sealed inside the device. That although he did not know how they had escaped him, he knew they would be back, sooner or later. Marduk left his home base immediately, for a hidden fortress he keeps many light years from the nearest Stargate. But he did not stay there long, either. Korra said he moved three times before he found assignment for all of his closest advisors, including Korra, and sent them all away from him. Then he left again, alone but for his Jaffa guard and his Goa’uld lieutenant, Enlil, and no one knows where he might be now.”

“Enlil?” Daniel sat up, eyebrows raised. “That’s the name of the Sumerian storm god, an enemy of Gilgamesh in the Epic.” 

Hammond frowned. “Marduk said the Ghost Keeper holds his greatest enemies? He didn’t put a name to them?”

“No. But he seemed certain they would return to hunt him down at the earliest opportunity.”

“Which,” Daniel underlined, “is apparently what one of them has done.”

Anise said, “If the device can be used as a vessel for the living consciousness, it can have many valuable applications.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Sam. “Would you really want to survive like that, sealed in a silver ball?”

Daniel added, “The Hesiu warned us that the Ghost Keepers can be dangerous. The souls of the dead can get a little… cranky. One was able to generate sounds on a wavelength that could kill anyone near. The Hesiu had to call Oma Desala to destroy whoever was trapped within their Ghost Keeper at the time. Obviously, being trapped inside for long periods can have some pretty nasty side-effects, probably akin to sensory deprivation. The Hesiu only used them to preserve the consciousness of their people until Oma had a chance to… take them. I think she took them into her higher plane of existence. Without that release… what would be the point of lingering like that? And now we know that these souls have the ability to leave the Ghost Keeper and possess another body. Just like a Goa’uld. Do we really need more of those around?”

Anise nodded, and seemed willing enough to let the matter drop. But she asked to see the device all the same. Once General Hammond adjourned the briefing, Daniel and Sam led her to the lab. Dr. Fraiser was there, and Teal’c was on guard, next to the isolation box. Daniel, currently forbidden inside the lab, went to the observation deck, and took over the microphone from a tech sitting there.

“You believe the possession of Colonel O’Neill occurred when he touched it?” Anise asked. “And yet, others have touched the device with no ill effects.”

Sam said in some chagrin, “I was carrying it around in my jacket for the first day. No gloves, no protection. Janet and I have both handled it.”

“Then why did the possession take place only when Colonel O’Neill touched it?”

“Because he’s a human male,” Daniel suggested over the microphone. “The only people to touch it since it was taken from Marduk are Korra, a Tok’ra, Sam and Janet, both women. We’re dealing with survivors from ancient Sumeria. They probably have a few gender issues with possessing a female body. And as far as they’re concerned, an intelligent, educated woman would appear to them as… well, a witch. Witches were not highly thought of in ancient Mesopotamia. To be blunt, they were feared.”

Anise considered the Ghost Keeper a moment, then, while the others in the room cried out warnings and objections, she calmly placed her bare hand against the silver surface. And nothing happened. But the planchet did move.

‘G’ ‘O’ ‘A’ ‘U’ ‘L’ ‘D’

“No,” Anise replied. “I am Tok’ra.”

‘D’ ‘O’ ‘U’ ‘W’ ‘I’ ‘S’ ‘H’ ‘I’ ‘C’ ‘O’ ‘M’ ‘I’ ‘N’

“You will give me a choice?”

‘A’ ‘Z’ ‘U’ ‘D’ ‘O’

Anise considered this. But it was Freya, the human host, who withdrew her hand.

‘U’ ‘R’ ‘W’ ‘I’ ‘Z’

“Are you indeed dead?”

‘No’

“Then you are alive.”

‘No’

“By what technology do you remain in this device?”

‘D’ ‘O’ ‘N’ ‘O’ ‘T’ ‘No’

“How were you placed in it?”

‘T’ ‘U’ ‘C’ ‘H’

“How was the other able to enter Colonel O’Neill?”

‘T’ ‘U’ ‘C’ ‘H’

“But you will not enter another unless… unless they chose to allow you?”

‘Yes’

“And no one has chosen?”

The planchet didn’t move. From the observation room, Daniel called out, “I volunteered to let Gilgamesh enter me, but General Hammond refused to allow it. I’m not even permitted in the lab now.” 

Anise glanced up at Daniel, speculation in her eyes, quickly guarded when she saw how the others around her bristled protectively. Anise had a history of being ruthless and reckless in the extreme in the use of unwitting subjects for her scientific investigations.

Sam said, “We don’t know what’s really inside the Marduk Sphere. We don’t know what might happen if another of our people is possessed. All we know is that Colonel O’Neill went AWOL after contact with this thing. And that’s not nearly enough to justify placing another of our people at risk.”

Again, Anise bowed. And left the lab. Daniel stood, gave Sam a look and shrugged, then he left too. He went straight to General Hammond’s office. The door was open. Daniel knocked at the door frame.

“Dr. Jackson,” the General acknowledged, sitting back and looking very tired. “If you’re going to ask to let yourself be possessed again—“

“No, sir,” Daniel said, with a faint, brief smile. “I want to ask what you intend to do with the Ghost Keeper.”

“The Tok’ra have made a request that I turn it over to them. Since I can’t see any useful application to justify us keeping it—“

“Sir?” Daniel settled into the chair opposite, and frowned. “There may not be a useful application, but… there is a very powerful reason for keeping it here.”

“Because of this Gilgamesh you think is inside.”

“Yes, sir.” He took a book from his jacket pocket, and showed it to the General. It was Joseph Campbell’s “Hero With a Thousand Faces”. “Did you ever have a hero when you were growing up, sir? A movie or television character, a book, a comic maybe? Roy Rogers? Superman? Luke Skywalker, King Arthur and his knights? Captain Kirk, maybe? We’ve always had them. Stories about men a little larger than life, going out to battle monsters, save kingdoms, discover new worlds, bring back the lessons of how to live a good life. Men who lead us, inspire us, give us a model for all we find noble and admirable. And even if they have their flaws, because they are human, that only brings them closer to us. There’s a sense in which every hero is the same hero, reflections and variations in every generation and culture, defining who we are by revealing the highest ideals in who we want to be. 

“General, the first hero, the one every other is patterned after, was Gilgamesh. Even when we forgot his name, lost his story for thousands of years, even if we didn’t know it, every tale told by the fire in every language, culture, age… every hero walked the path that Gilgamesh started. And when we re-discovered the epic after so much time, the strangest thing wasn’t the story itself – it was how truly familiar it was. As if we had never lost it at all. As if we heard it in our dreams. As if it was part of us, fused into our bone, flowing in our blood.”

Daniel frowned at his hands, clenched around the book. “Sir… I know you think I’ll do something stupid if you keep it here at the Base… But I swear to you, here and now, that I won’t go near it. And I don’t think you have to worry about him trying to possess an unwilling host. He’s said he won’t do that. Anyway, it should be easy enough to keep the Ghost Keeper isolated, if that’s a concern… But, sir, if it is Gilgamesh, he was once a king of Earth. He built a city. He inspired a story that defined what it means to be human, and what it takes to be a hero. We *can’t* send him away.”

The General met Daniel’s dark, earnest eyes. Quietly, he said, “Do you really think keeping him shut up in that ball is any kinder?”

“No sir. There is an option we can offer him. We could take the device to P3R909. Ask the Hesiu to call Oma Desala. She has the power to release the souls of the dead from the Ghost Keepers.” 

Hammond studied the young man. “And Colonel O’Neill?” He was almost sorry he said it. 

Daniel turned his face away, hunched up and tense for a moment. “Gilgamesh will help us as much as he can, given the difficulty of communicating the way we must. Enkidu was his partner, his lover, in life. It’s not so strange to think his first priority is re-uniting with him. I’m sure he wants to help.” 

General Hammond nodded. “I’ll… think about it. That’s all I can promise, Dr. Jackson.”

Daniel gave a single nod and got up, going to the door. Then he stopped, and looked back over his shoulder. “And, by the way, General, you’re wrong. About the respect. I have all the respect in the world for you, you know.”

Hammond smiled. “I know, son. And don’t worry. We’ll find him. I can promise you that.”

Å 

When they went looking, Daniel was easy to find. He was in his office, huddled up at his desk, poring over his books by the light of a single lamp. Sam and Teal’c traded a speaking look, and settled themselves in chairs opposite. Sam set a full cup of coffee down next to Daniel’s elbow.

“Drink it while it’s hot,” Sam recommended. 

Only then did Daniel look up, blinking in surprise, as if the pair had materialized before him out of nowhere. His eyes were suspiciously red, but that might have been from the hours he had spent concentrating on his work. He took off his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

He glanced at his watch, then couldn’t focus on the face. “What time is it?”

“Way too late,” Sam said. “You should have gone home hours ago.”

“I’m reviewing everything we have on Marduk. Our version of him, at least. The legends, the fragments… he kept a very low profile while he was here. Or we just don’t have enough surviving information. Four thousand years is a long time.”

“Your history is lost in time,” Teal’c agreed. “So you once told me.”

“And there isn’t much reason for you to go home, is there, Daniel?”

He leaned back in his chair. “I hope we haven’t been that obvious.”

Sam smiled. “We know you both better than anyone else. Hard to keep something like that a secret when we’re living in each other’s pockets all the time. But… you don’t have to worry. We don’t need to ask, and you don’t need to tell.”

“You know, I could get to hate that stupid tag line. And the stupider garbage it represents. Not that we’ve… got all that far. Sam… Are you okay with this? I mean, I know that… well… I know you felt… ‘more than you should’…”

Sam smiled, reaching out to take Daniel’s hand and squeeze it reassuringly. “I had a crush. For a while. I’m long over it, Daniel. Really.”

“You’re sure?” he asked anxiously, studying her carefully. “I thought a couple of times lately that maybe…”

“Brief adolescent crush embarrassing in a grown woman who, believe me, is well aware she has father issues, and is a push-over for older guys. Which, little brother, is the *only* thing that explains why I never fell all over you. Okay, for the past year I’ve been running interference for the Colonel, wonderfully dense man that he is, crashing around like the proverbial bull in the china shop… To tell you the truth, it’s a relief he finally crashed broad-side into the Clue Bus. You know when that happened, don’t you?”

Daniel nodded, smiling. “We’ve had the ‘when did you first suspect’ conversation. My alternate self, DJ, threw a pass at him. Shocked the hell out of him. It was Keb for me… But we’ve agreed we probably always had this thing going, just didn’t recognize it, and then life got in the way…”

Sam and Teal’c remained quiet, supportive, listening. It was so rare that Daniel voluntarily opened up, that they were almost afraid to move or speak for fear of scaring him off. 

Daniel looked up and smiled at them. His friends. His family. Jack had told him that part of their over-protectiveness came from being unable to bear the same level of pain he did. They wanted, needed to share. Strange as it still seemed to him, even after all these years, they wanted to be there for him. And tonight, right now, with the man he loved alone, lost and in danger out there in the big, bad universe somewhere, just the other side of the Stargate and just beyond reach… he couldn’t deny them that. 

“I was happy on Abydos. I was happy with Sha’re. It was the first time since my parents died that I had a family, a home. That I felt like I belonged. Although… maybe belonged isn’t the right word. I don’t think I was quite real to them. They never quite got over seeing me as the other-world hero who defied their God and helped destroy him, freed them from slavery. Kind of tough to live that down. Sha’re, Kasuf and Skarra were the only ones who could forget all that and see a very ordinary, very real man, the only ones who really opened up and let me in. But they were the only ones I needed. I kept busy, teaching those who wanted to read and write, compiling a history of Abydos from any evidence I could find… I thought I was happy, content. But Sha’re… She was worried I might leave. I was getting a bit restless… I didn’t even realize it myself, but I guess that’s what sent me into the desert, searching for something, anything. And I found the temple with the Stargate map.”

“Is that why you opened the Abydos Stargate again, Daniel?” Sam dared. “You were restless?”

Daniel frowned, considering. “If it was, it wasn’t my first motivation, or a conscious one. Sha’re had a miscarriage. I almost lost her then. Medical knowledge isn’t real advanced on Abydos and the infant mortality rate… I was terrified. I was being as careful as I could be not to rush her, give her time to heal, but Sha’re wanted to try again. I… I never could refuse her. I thought… If I just had a way to get her to medical help… I thought there must be one gate out there that would lead to people advanced enough to help us. Remember, we thought Ra was the last of his race, so I figured it would be safe enough to go looking. I didn’t even think of trying the Earth Gate, assumed it wouldn’t open anyway. Jack said he was going to tell everyone Abydos was blown up and I was dead, have them shut the Gate down and bury it. So I didn’t dare even try the Earth address, decided I wouldn’t unless I ran out of other ones to try, or Sha’re got pregnant again. And then… well. Jack came crashing back into my life, just ahead of Apophis, and… Here we are.

“I honestly didn’t expect to fall in love again. I didn’t think I could take that chance again. And I certainly didn’t expect to find a home, a family. And if someone told me it would be the SGC, a military base… I would have laughed in their faces.”

Teal’c raised an eyebrow. “You remembered Major Willison, your foster father.”

“He was a hard man to forget. I admit, it gave me a certain prejudice against the armed forces. Unfair, I know. I got over it. When I came back from Abydos, everything just… fit wrong. Which was pretty much what I expected. It took me a long time to notice I’d made myself a place here. That there was a place I belonged, more than anywhere else in my life, including Abydos. In SG1.” He smiled at his teammates, and they smiled back, warm in his glow. “As for Jack… Took me a while to let go of Sha’re, to wake up and smell the coffee. But when I did, there was Jack. 

“So. We’ve thrashed out ‘when did you know’, and had the ‘are you sure and have you thought about the consequences’ Talk, Jack has threat-assessed the whole thing to death – did that before he came near me. But we… He’s a little nervous, I’m a lot repressed, and neither of us know what the hell we’re trying to do… And I should have known! Last night… I should have known that wasn’t him! Why didn’t I know?” 

Sam and Teal’c had no answer for that. 

“He… asked me to quit the SGC, in the lab, just before... I said no.”

Sam shifted in her chair, very pointedly not looking at Teal’c. He had made the same request, of her, the night before. It had taken all the bald-faced brass she had in her to say no, considering their respective positions at the time. There are some questions it is very hard to say no to when the man you love is buried to the root inside you. Teal’c was *very* good at timing. 

Daniel looked up, at a poster on his wall, showing a stone bas relief of a man in robes and a beard, holding a dead lion in each hand. The standard depiction of Gilgamesh in ancient art. “In the epic, Enkidu keeps trying to stop Gilgamesh, tells him what they’re doing is too dangerous. But Gilgamesh is two thirds divine, and I get the impression he doesn’t really believe he can fail, or die. He tells Enkidu that they have to try, whatever the odds, and even if they fail, at least it’ll make a good story. He’s in it for the glory. You don’t get to be a hero by running away. But… I’ve been sitting here wondering… maybe Enkidu had a point.”

Teal’c cocked his head to one side. “Are you here for the glory, Danieljackson?”

Daniel smiled. “I don’t think so. If reputation meant anything to me, I could still be an archeologist in good standing, with a job, tenure, a publisher, grants, digging in Egypt. Like my alternate, Dr. Jackson, with his six-figure paycheck, high-rise condo and Porsche. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut about what I really thought about the Great Pyramid at Giza.”

“Trying to be a hero, then, Daniel?” Sam asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Don’t we all want to live up to our heroes? You know… My mother used to read to me from the Epic of Gilgamesh, instead of Grimm’s. He really was my earliest hero. Set the standard.”

“There are worse ones, I suppose.”

Daniel frowned, shaking his head, his eyes unnaturally bright. “I went to Hammond. Asked him not to give the Ghost Keeper to the Tok’ra. And… I promised not to go near it, if only he’d consider keeping it. I gave my word. I just… I have this terrible feeling that means I’ve given up on Jack. Chosen a ‘dead Babylonian in a jar’ over him. Just like I chose to keep working here over leaving with him. He was willing to give up everything for me, and I…” Desperately, he groped for a tissue from the box on his desk. He gave a noisy blow to his nose, and mumbled, “Allergies.”

His friends politely let that transparent excuse pass. 

“We will find O’Neill,” said Teal’c confidently.

Daniel frowned impatiently. “Why is it everyone thinks a few wishful good thoughts will keep me happy? Our chances of finding Jack and Enkidu without Gilgamesh’s help are less than nil. Don’t you think I know that?”

“I am not thinking wishfully,” Teal’c objected. “It is my experience.”

“Care to explain that?”

“We have been in many dangerous and impossible positions before, many worse than this one, and survived intact. Remember the day I met you. You were in a prison of Apophis, awaiting execution. The three of you stood there, unarmed, helpless, facing twenty Jaffa staff weapons. Yet you survive while they do not. We have been to alternate Earth’s, been imprisoned on many worlds, have been thought dead many times, have been truly dead more than once. We have been to Hell. And yet we survive. What you have told me of this Enkidu makes me believe he is a great hunter and a formidable warrior. Much like O’Neill. Marduk himself fears this man, and runs from him. And we are formidable, each in our own way. With or without the help of Gilgamesh, we will find O’Neill, Danieljackson. I have no doubt of that.”

Daniel thought about that, and nodded. “Thanks, Teal’c.”

“Enkidu was not correct,” Teal’c added solemnly. “If one has made a commitment, one must follow it through. That is the only honorable way. I myself had a choice to make, between my personal well-being, my family, and the fate of my people, my world, all the people of all the worlds. I will not take back that choice now, or blame another for choosing as I did. To turn away merely because it is the safe path is not acceptable.” But he was looking at Sam as he said it. She smiled at him, her own eyes misting over. Daniel hid a smile as the temperature in his office began to heat from the smoldering looks Sam and Teal’c exchanged.

Sam then said, “And Daniel, you were willing to give up your body, willing to risk losing yourself, to go after the Colonel. That’s something. And even the Colonel would tell you it’s time to knock off the work. You won’t be any good to anyone if you don’t get some sleep.”

Daniel smiled. “You think I can sleep? Um, guys? Thanks for coming to cheer me up. But I really do have a lot of research left to do. There’s a last meeting with the Tok’ra before they leave, and I want to have some suggestions as to the most likely places to start looking for Marduk, see if the Tok’ra can confirm. So… if you have somewhere else you need to be…”

Daniel almost laughed aloud as his friends both got the hint at the same moment and almost bolted from their chairs with nearly incoherent apologies before rushing out the door. He shook his head over it, then put his glasses back on and lost himself in the work once more. His balm for every ache and pain. That and the coffee Sam had thoughtfully provided, and the nearby bottle of aspirin.

Å 

Anise and her team had been allowed unrestricted access to the Ghost Keeper device, when it became obvious the presence inside would pose no threat to the Tok’ra. She used her own instruments on it, of far more advanced design than anything the Tau’ri possessed. However, nothing she had brought was of any use in the study. As Major Carter and Dr. Fraiser had already discovered, the reflective surface of the object simply turned away any kind of intrusive probe. And the presence within had become non-responsive, making no attempt to communicate with the Tok’ra scientists. 

Anise sent the others of her team away to their assigned quarters, and bid the SGC guards farewell as General Hammond ordered them to stand down, apparently no longer concerned about Dr. Jackson’s intentions. So now Anise stood alone with the device, staring into it. She followed an ominous precedent when she turned off the monitors and the recording equipment in the lab, lifted the lid on the isolation box, and pulled the electrode pads free. 

Å 

Daniel read again the obscure reference that seemed to indicate a favorite retreat of the God Marduk. It was a temple he had taken over from another defeated deity. The description of how to get to it sounded suspiciously like it might be another world, reachable only through the Stargate. Not that the ancient texts referred to anything like that, but when the descriptions of a mythic journey became deliberately vague, it left a lot to a desperate archeologist’s imagination. Daniel thought he remembered coming across the name of that temple somewhere else. He reached for another dusty, leather-bound tome.

He didn’t hear the soft footstep coming in the door, or notice the shadow falling across his desk. All he felt was the cold smooth touch at the bare nape of his neck, over the sagging collar of his jacket.

Daniel vaulted from his chair, whirled, eyes open wide and staring but blank and blind, mouth open but mute, head twisting…

It flooded through him, and not through him. Sensation so long forgotten it seemed alien. That sense warring with his own identity. Visions, memories flaring, flashing, and out of the whirling spinning chaos, the mirror in his bedroom last night…

With a cry, Daniel collapsed on the floor. He shook for a moment, then went still.

‘Interesting,’ thought Anise.

‘They’re going to shoot us dead where we stand,’ thought Freya. ‘We must leave now. Not just this room, but this world. They must not find us here.’

Carefully, Anise placed the now-empty Ghost Keeper upon Dr. Jackson’s cluttered desk, and left the office.

It was Teal’c who found him there in the morning.

Å 

Daniel opened his eyes to see Dr. Fraiser, Sam, Teal’c, the General and Jacob Carter clustered around him. He was in the infirmary. Again.

“Oh, I *really* hate when this happens.”

“Daniel?” Dr. Fraiser asked, checking his eyes.

“I’m right here, Doctor.”

Sam ventured, “Anyone else in there with you?”

The shiver worked through his entire body. And he heard himself answer, “Yes, beauteous one.” Since the words were ancient Sumerian, he was just as glad no one else understood. The other within smiled, stretched and laughed, pure joy at the return of sensation after so very, very long.

“How long?” Daniel asked, and it had to be aloud.

Misunderstanding, Dr. Fraiser said, “Teal’c found you an hour ago, Daniel. How do you feel?”

“Wondrous, Healer!” and that was English. More or less.

“And who are you?” General Hammond demanded grimly.

“As you were told. I am Gilgamesh. Lord of Kullab. Fifth King of the first dynasty of Uruk. Builder of the walls. Enemy of the false gods. Slayer of the Heavenly Bull. I am he who tamed the Wild Man. As tame as one so wild and free can ever be, at least.”

Daniel’s friends stood around the infirmary cot and watched his face change. He blinked, frowned, looking about him for something. Calmly, Teal’c passed him his glasses.

“Thanks, Teal’c. Whoa. This is so… strange.”

General Hammond said, “If that’s you again, Dr. Jackson, I’d like to know what the hell happened.”

“Not my fault, General,” Daniel protested. “Honest. I was sitting in my office, minding my own business, and… someone came up behind me.”

“I can make a guess about that,” Jacob sighed. “Anise is gone. Left early this morning while the rest of us were still asleep. And she was the last to sign out of the lab last night.”

“You must secure the Ghost Keeper,” said Gilgamesh, clearly not Daniel, straightening as he sat up, growing hard in some indefinable way. “Without it, I cannot leave this body, and Enkidu cannot leave your Jack O’Neill.”

Teal’c reported, “The Ghost Keeper is on Danieljackson’s desk. It is safe.” 

“And you want to leave?” Hammond asked coldly.

“When I have done what I must to find Enkidu. Yes. I have promised. Help me find the Wild Man and we will both return to the Ghost Keeper, and leave you in peace. Then you may do what you will with us. I care not. Too many years have fled by, too much has changed, too much has been lost… the weight of it is more than I can bear any longer.”

“Why are you willing to help us?”

Gilgamesh smiled. “You are right to be wary. You who fight the Goa’uld must know what treachery is. But I am a man of truth. A man of law – I am the writer of the laws! I will not be enemy of the Goa’uld and become one myself, stealing a body not my own. And I will not allow Enkidu, closer than a brother though he be, to do so either. Rage drives him. Not thought, feeling. In the thousands of years we have been trapped, he has gone mad. He bears no ill will to your Jack. But rage and fear and madness drive him, like a beast in muste, and he will chase Marduk to the end of the universe, if he lives so long. It is not I who help you, General Hammond. It is you who help me.”

“And what of Dr. Jackson?”

“This possession is not as that of the Goa’uld. I have no hold like that. I cannot take Daniel where he does not already wish to go. No more can Enkidu. I do not know in what manner he persuaded your Jack to join him, but once I have found him, I can bring Enkidu back to me, and Jack back to you. And that is what Daniel wants, is it not?” 

General Hammond sighed, and glared at all the others impartially. “I’m going to have to think about this. Dr. Fraiser, I want you to give this… man a complete physical. I want to make sure he is perfectly healthy before I decide what to do with him – them. The rest of you I want in the briefing room within the hour, to discuss our options, and any suggestions where we can begin the search for Colonel O’Neill.”

“I have a possible destination now,” said… one of the two personalities currently residing in one body.

“What destination is that?” Sam asked.

“When I was going over my notes last night,” said Daniel, definitely Daniel, re-settling his glasses on his nose, “I found a reference to a place called Kudurru, one where Marduk is a power.”

“Kudurru…” Jacob mused. “I think maybe I know that world.”

Gilgamesh nodded. “Yes. Long has he been away from Kudurru. He may believe I have forgotten it, that Enkidu never knew it. I know the symbols that will take you to that world through the Chappa’ai. Marduk will feel safe in that place. But. Eventually, he will leave it, as he will leave all of them, tired of running from me, or prepared to face me, on the one world where he knows we must meet.”

“And that would be?” General Hammond asked.

“Dilmun. Garden of the Sun. It is where he took those of my people that he stole away as slaves, over four thousand years ago. Their descendents are there now, still under his yoke. He believes that if I am free, that is where I will go, soon or late. To free them. I know the symbols for that place, too.” 

“I’ll think about those options,” the General growled unhappily. He motioned for Teal’c, Sam and Jacob to follow him to the door. “I want someone to watch that man every moment he’s here. We have no idea who he is now, or what he might become.”

Å 

“All right, Daniel,” said Dr. Fraiser. “As far as I can tell, there’s nothing wrong with you physically.”

Daniel smiled at her. Suddenly, it was very difficult to see anything but that beautiful smile. It glittered. It promised and seduced. He held her eyes locked with his, and when his hand reached to caress her chin, she shuddered from that point deep to the bone and straight down her entire nervous system.

“It is good to know the women of Earth are still beautiful. Thank you for your care of me, Dark-eyed One.”

His head tilted, his lips parted just a breath, to take hers. At once a heat boiled between them, Janet felt her world tilting as he stood, took her in his arms, twisted them and leaned her back against the cot. His mouth was devastating, lips soft and persuasive, moving on hers, tasting, a tongue just exploring, curious, testing, no demand, just an offer she was momentarily helpless to resist. She opened to him, allowing him to surge in, filling her, provoking a response she had rarely known before, and not in far too long. One strong hand on the nape of her neck, holding her carefully, securely, tenderly as a baby, another wrapping around her to the base of her spine, bringing her in tighter to his body, where she could feel… 

“Whoa Nelly! Back off, cowboy,” Janet choked out, shoving him back. Reluctantly, she had to admit, and her shuddering body screamed in protest, but she was absently proud of the fact that she did push him back.

A smile widened and he bowed his head to her. “So be it, beauteous one. Will you regret your choice, do you think?”

“None of your damn business. Where the hell is Daniel?”

“Dreaming of Babylon and the Hanging Gardens, warm sultry nights beneath a full moon, listening to the temple maidens play sad songs of lost love. He will be much displeased when he returns.”

“I bet he will.”

“You will regret,” Gilgamesh decided. “No woman has ever had reason to regret the hours spent with me. Only the ones spent far from my side.”

“Daniel!” Janet snapped, suspecting that the intellect in the beautiful body, behind the gorgeous eyes and the soft, all-too kissable mouth, was telling the absolute truth, whatever body he was in. And this body was enough of a temptation in the possession of a man who had no idea of its true power. That was no longer the case, and Janet shuddered at the implications. “Daniel, front and center. Right now, mister!”

The dark blue eyes shut tight, then opened. And Daniel blinked.

“Oh my God… Janet… I…”

“Don’t let that guy do that to you again, okay, Daniel? Almost all the women and a surprising number of the men on this base are way too susceptible around you as it is, without Mr. Macho Charisma making moves on them. And if he bats those eyes of yours at Sam the way he just did at me, Teal’c will break you in half. He’ll apologize after, but he’ll do it. So no more nodding off. You got that?”

Far too mortified to answer, Daniel gathered up his jacket and fled.

“*What* were you thinking?” Daniel demanded furiously.

//That your Janet is an extremely attractive woman. It *has* been four thousand years, you know. Which of your comrades are the susceptible ones?//

“I don’t know what you mean.”

//Your witch Janet said almost all the women and some of the men were susceptible to your charms. Who?//

“What, you want names and addresses? She was joking. As far as I know there’s just the one, and Enkidu took him off someplace chasing Marduk.”

An airman passed them in the corridor. Gilgamesh gave a flashing brilliant smile, and the airman tripped on his way by.

//Ah. That was one. But too young, I think.// 

“Stop that! It’s my body and I’m taken, thank you very much.”

Gilgamesh was amused. And the memory of Daniel’s last night with Jack surged up again, almost throwing Daniel into the wall, so vivid it was, flooding his body with remembered heat.

//That was Enkidu, you know. Not Jack. Or mostly Enkidu. His love-making is… unique. Once experienced, never forgotten. He was confused, no doubt. And it has been four thousand years for him, too, plus a year.//

“Enkidu may have supplied some of the ideas and… skills, but believe me, it was Jack who drove to my apartment and broke in to wait for me.”

//Of course. And that was the key. That was why Enkidu found it so easy to take the body. Unlike me and you. First Enkidu took Jack exactly where he most wanted to be, to do exactly what he most needed to do. That is how it must be between us, Daniel. I will not, and I cannot, make you do anything you do not wish to do.//

“And kissing Janet?”

//Was it so painful, then?//

Daniel shut his mouth tight and hustled to his office. At least he could enjoy a certain amount of privacy there to get used to carrying around an extra life. He was uneasy about what it must look like to anyone watching. Luckily, his conversations with his new alter ego were carried out silently, *sotto voce*. He sat at his desk and turned on his computer, and could feel the other within watching with great interest. Daniel opened a file for his report.

“Can you tell me what happened? How did you and Enkidu end up in the Ghost Keeper?” As Gilgamesh told the tale, Daniel typed. Occasionally, Daniel hesitated, had the other stop, or remember visuals and details, then continue.

Uruk, a city on the banks of the Euphrates River, gleaming in the morning sunlight. The walls tall and wide, not made of stone, but of pale double-baked brick. It was the technological marvel of its age. “Uruk of the Strong Walls” became a by-word in the ancient world. And just outside, stood the tall stepped ziggurat, the Temple of Eanna, dedicated to the patron gods of Uruk: Anu lord of the skies, and Ishtar, goddess of war and love.

//When my beloved Enkidu died, I went mad with grief. I traveled to places where rumor said the secrets of immortality might be learned. But it was always a lie. At length, I came to Egypt. It was said their gods had a box of gold that could return a corpse to life.//

“The resurrection chambers. The sarcophagus.”

//I was astounded to find gods actually walking among the people there. At least, they said they were gods. But I talked to the people, the warriors and clerks, merchants and farmers, and they told a different tale. They spoke of wanton cruelty, arrogance and ignorance strangely combined, of many hundreds of people disappearing each night and a great stone circle gate that captured a magic glowing pool of water within. And I recalled a tale I had heard, a warning to beware of strange beings who would look like us, but with strange voices and glowing eyes, who would claim to be gods, but were truly demons, monsters, thieves of our bodies. A legend from before the Flood. A woman of the water people, the Oannes, warned us.//

“Omaroca.”

//Yes, that was she. I asked of the gold box, and they said the sarcophagus did indeed return life, but at a cost. The soul was poisoned little by little every time it was used. So I left Egypt and returned at last to Uruk, disheartened. But there I found some of Egypt’s gods had taken up residence in Eanna, the temple I built with my own hands for Anu and Ishtar. Marduk, one called himself. The others called themselves Ishtar and Enlil. But I knew them for false gods. I called upon my people to rise up and cast them down. But great was their influence, great was their army of Jaffa, and great the fear of the people. Those few who aided me… We were defeated time and again, driven into the desert plain of Kullab. 

//Then I learned Marduk, guessing I would defy him and be his greatest enemy, had sent spies among the people of Uruk even before I left. So he made his plans. He set his high priest to infiltrate Eanna. Then he commanded my beloved, Enkidu, be poisoned. The high priest made certain the Ghost Keeper was present when Enkidu breathed his last. When I went mad and left Uruk, that merely gave Marduk and his servants more opportunity to usurp my rule. So was my own foolish passion used against me.

//My loyal supporters and I fought from the desert as well as we could. The false goddess Ishtar we did manage to slay. Then Marduk let me know that he held Enkidu, a prisoner of the Ghost Keeper. I had no choice but to try and free him. And so I was captured too.

//I was brought in chains before Marduk. The Ghost Keeper sat upon his lap. He had me executed in its presence. Then the Goa’uld Beast invaded my empty body. His brother, Enlil, placed him in their resurrection chamber, and he arose, whole, strong, young and beautiful, alive… in my body. That was the first and last time I heard any word from Enkidu within the Ghost Keeper. And it was a roar of rage and torment. Then he fell silent. For four thousand years.//

Daniel finished typing, and sat still, wondering what it must have been like… all that time, imprisoned without a body…

//I once searched the world for immortality. It is a perilous quest. More perilous if you succeed than if you fail.//

“And the loneliness?”

//There were, occasionally, others in the Ghost Keeper with us, for the first century or so. There was one before either Enkidu or I entered it.//

“Who was it?”

//The spirit of Enlil’s host. I do not remember the name. He was Egyptian. He tried to leave the Ghost Keeper, into a Jaffa. But we cannot make the host do what they do not already wish to do. The Jaffa overwhelmed him, and Enlil killed the Jaffa. I think some Goa’uld fear the spirits of their hosts. I do not know if they have cause. But it is this fear that drove Marduk and Enlil to remove the souls of their hosts to the Ghost Keeper before they entered.//

“And the others you talk about?”

//Not all have the strength of mind or spirit to endure the long years within the Ghost Keeper.//

“From what the Hesiu told me, the souls of the dead were never intended to remain in the Ghost Keepers so long. They call Oma Desala to release them soon after they’re… interred. They also told me some of the dead become… angry. Resentful. Dangerous.”

//The Beast Marduk did not intend ever to release his prisoners of the Ghost Keeper. Almost all go mad, one way or another. Some simply fade away to nothingness. Many could not resist the lure of escape. I warned all that possession of the living was perilous, but either they thought they would be stronger than the host, or were too desperate to care. In time, Marduk grew wary of such possessions, and kept the Ghost Keeper guarded. He let no other souls inside, and took care I, and Enkidu, did not have opportunity to escape. So I remained. I learned. I listened. I waited. Something must happen, I thought. Even eternity must have an end. One day even the mighty Goa’uld must meet a greater foe. I thought only of an end. I did not think… I had come to believe whatever was left of Enkidu whom I loved was no more than a wisp of memory, and probably not even that. I was as surprised and dismayed as you when he suddenly emerged, like a snake coiled in a hunter’s bag that awaits just the loosing of the chord to spring free.//

“If Enkidu does catch up with Marduk, what does he intend to do?”

//I do not know how aware he may have been over the long years. But I have heard of some ways in which a Goa’uld snake may be removed and leave the host body intact. One is to take the host to certain worlds, protected by the people of the Asgard.//

“Like Cimmeria. You mean let Thor’s Hammer kill the symbiote.”

//Yes, of course, you know of Thor’s Hammer. That device will kill the symbiote, but then my body will lie as if dead, with no soul to take command of it. There is also a drug the System Lords keep secret, that causes the symbiote to sleep, so they can use a pronged device to remove it, so it can be placed in a stasis jar. This is how they punish and imprison their kind whom they most fear or despise. The Tok’ra have a device that will remove a symbiote… I have heard only rumors of this, and know no details. It is said they gained it from a people known as the Tollan. Most deadly of all, perhaps known only to Marduk, Enlil and myself, there is a bright green liquid called Barochda blood. It kills the symbiote within. The freed host is ill for a time, but recovers.//

“Barochda blood,” Daniel mused. SG1 had met an alien bounty hunter, Aris Boch, who said his people could not be used as hosts, who had bled bright green. He had used the word “Barochda” as a password.

Gilgamesh said, //Marduk and Enlil carry vials of Barochda blood with them wherever they go. I have never heard of a single Goa’uld who would not instantly kill any other for the slightest of reasons, and neither have they. Marduk trusts his brother Enlil as much as any can, yet not enough to leave off carrying his little vial. I also know he had Enlil’s replaced with harmless colored water, long ago. So very trusting.//

“And no other Goa’uld know of this Barochda blood?”

Gilgamesh gave a mental shrug. //I have no way of knowing who may or may not be aware of its peculiar power. Marduk keeps it very secret, but others may have discovered the same fact.//

A substance that could free a human host… If Daniel had such a thing a few years ago… he might have been able to save his wife. He could free Sarah Gardner. Hell, he could free them all, and end the dominion of the Goa’uld altogether…

//Daniel,// said Gilgamesh quietly. //It is blood. The blood of a living innocent. How much would you need? How many of an innocent race would need to die to give it to you?//

Daniel thought that over, his thoughts seething. He barely noticed when the SGC Base alarm claxon began to scream out in the corridor. He was only mildly curious about it, when Sam ran by, skidded past his office door, grabbed the door frame and swung around to stare at him. Teal’c was right behind her, but with a far more controlled and dignified brake.

“Daniel! You’re… here.”

“Hi, Sam. Just making some notes. Is it time for General Hammond’s briefing already?”

“Um…”

“What’s the alarm about?”

“Well, actually… it’s about you. We didn’t know where you were. You left the infirmary without an escort…”

“And came straight here. I’ve been getting some background information on Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Fascinating stuff. And I think we might just have found a new weapon we can use for taking the Goa’uld down. You can synthesize blood, can’t you? You still have that sample Aris Boch gave you?”

“Daniel? You… feel okay? Dr. Fraiser said you were acting a bit odd in the infirmary.” 

Daniel blushed. “Why? What did she say?”

“Dr. Fraiser was not clear,” Teal’c reported. “Most unlike her. She too had trouble keeping her proper color. And she was extremely distracted, which is why she did not assign an escort to you before you left her care.”

“An escort.”

“General Hammond’s orders,” Sam explained apologetically.

“He does not trust me,” said Gilgamesh. “Us,” added Daniel. “I understand.”

Sam frowned. “Just so there’s no misunderstandings here,” she said, groping, “which one of you understands about the trust and the escort?”

Daniel looked back, blinking. “Both of us, actually, Sam. I promise, I won’t try and go anywhere without an escort. And neither will Gilgamesh. Okay?”

Sam leaned over to the desk, picked up the phone, and called the all-clear to base security. Dr. Daniel Jackson had been found, and all was well. Or… temporarily okay, at least.

“Come on, Daniel. Briefing in five. Just enough time for you to get a coffee. Teal’c and I will… escort.”

Å 

It took a lot of argument before General Hammond was ready to assign Dr. Daniel Jackson, or whoever/whatever he had become, to go on the mission with SG1. If Dr. Fraiser had been willing to give a clearer account of her observations of the new personality and assess the level of threat he posed, Hammond would have found his own task easier. But the usually professional and un-flappable doctor had almost gagged on the phrase “level of threat”, and been unwilling to meet the unsettling and alien smile on Dr. Jackson’s face. 

Okay, so the threat had been personal. Very personal. And what the hell was that going to mean as far as risk to the mission to find Colonel O’Neill was concerned? The only thing that reassured Hammond at this point was that Teal’c would be along for the ride. The stolid Jaffa seemed to have no difficulty sorting out his priorities where it came to the new, augmented Dr. Jackson, unlike everyone else around the base.

So Dr. Jackson was given permission to accompany the SG1 and SG3 teams to Kudurru the next morning. They would look for any sign that either Marduk or Colonel O’Neill was there, and if they found none, they would move on to Dilmun. In the meantime, Daniel was confined to the base, not to go anywhere without escort, and would spend the night in the VIP quarters.

Teal’c accompanied Daniel to the locker room to get showered and changed for the night. Teal’c took his duty very seriously. He did not know exactly what Danieljackson had done to so disturb Dr. Fraiser, but it made him extremely uneasy. His Danieljackson would never do anything to intentionally upset the good Doctor, or indeed, anyone who was not a Goa’uld or NID. This man… to lose O’Neill and Danieljackson, both his brothers… it was, as O’Neill would say, not acceptable. So he watched sullenly as Danieljackson emerged from the shower to stand before the mirror, staring at his reflection.

“He is very beautiful,” commented the one who was not Danieljackson. “Perhaps as beautiful as I was.” He smiled into the mirror. “Yes, you are, you know. I no longer wonder at the admiration others show you. You have wit and intelligence, too. And you think too much. My beloved has told me that, time out of mind. We have much in common, Daniel.”

Teal’c glowered. “Danieljackson. Are you present?”

The blue blue eyes cleared and re-focused, and the ivory cheeks burned red. “I’m here, Teal’c. It’s okay. Really. I’m fine.”

One raised skeptical Jaffa eyebrow showed eloquently how fine Teal’c thought his brother was.

“What of you, Master Teal’c of Chulak? Are you one of the susceptible?” Those unnaturally cool blue eyes appraised him, eyebrows raised above the top rim of the glasses in challenge. Teal’c returned the regard steadily.

“My feelings for Danieljackson are no concern of yours,” Teal’c retorted coldly.

The other chuckled. “He respects you deeply, though he may not say,” Gilgamesh declared, and the fast red flush in those cheeks was Daniel’s own embarrassment. But Gilgamesh was in command of the tongue still. “He is shy. He does not believe in his own value, does not see how he affects others.”

“Danieljackson does not concern himself with the opinions of others,” Teal’c admitted grudgingly. “He told me once that he is not responsible for the attitudes of others. Only his own.”

Gilgamesh nodded, granting the point. “Still. His beauty is a power he could use, and does not.”

“As you do?”

The long-dead king of Uruk smiled. “All power must be exercised, or it is wasted like water poured into desert sands. Using it is what power is for.”

“That sounds like the Goa’uld.”

“It is a truth they have grasped, yes. As have you, admit to it or not. But what the Goa’uld never have grasped is the responsibility that comes with power. A king may rule, but he must also serve or he is a tyrant only, not a true leader of his people. Enkidu taught me this simple lesson. In my earliest years, before I knew him, I had but to see a beautiful girl or boy to want them. I do not take the unwilling, but I do not remember any who were unwilling, however jealous their mates might be. Then Enkidu came to me. And from that moment he was the only one I wanted. But still, my people had a claim on me, and I on them. If it took the pledge of my body or theirs to bind us to each other, then it was done. My power over them, and theirs over me.”

“You have power over Danieljackson now. You will use that too.”

Those familiar/unfamiliar eyes looked back at him unflinchingly. “I will give you Truth, Master Teal’c of Chulak. Until I have Enkidu safe with me again, yes, I will use every advantage I can to bind Daniel to my will.”

“Then know this, Gilgamesh, King of Uruk. Danieljackson is my friend. My brother. But if you take him from us, I will kill you.”

Gilgamesh bowed solemnly. “I know this.”

Then Daniel blinked and frowned. “But you won’t have to, Teal’c. I would never make you do that. I would never let it come to that.”

Teal’c made no reply. Could he trust in Daniel’s ability to hold out against the alien soul within? O’Neill had not.

Daniel saw the doubt in Teal’c’s eyes, and couldn’t blame him. “All I can do is ask you to trust me, Teal’c, and I know that may not be enough for you. I know my track record for resisting… influences… isn’t great. Hathor’s nishta, Shyla’s sarcophagus, the Light in that pleasure palace...” And Teal’c didn’t even know the worst betrayal, in the dream given him by Shifu, a path he thankfully did not take. But with all the knowledge of the Goa’uld swirling like a madness in his head he had… he had… He had deliberately and vindictively ordered Teal’c to his death, and Teal’c, trusting him because he was Danieljackson, had gone.

Daniel shut his eyes tight a moment, pilloried by his own past failures. “It won’t happen, Teal’c,” he vowed. “Not this time. He needs me as much as we need him.” 

“Beware, Danieljackson. Gilgamesh lies.”

“What? No. He can’t. Not to me.”

“He lies,” Teal’c insisted implacably. “He said the souls from the Ghost Keeper could not control, could not make the host do what he does not wish to do. But that other made O’Neill leave us. O’Neill would never do that of his own free will. Never.” 

Daniel winced, hearing the depth of anguished betrayal in his brother’s rigidly flat voice. Teal’c felt the desertion, felt he had been abandoned. His first allegiance had always been to Jack. He had since forged strong bonds to Sam, Daniel, Janet Fraiser and Cassie, even General Hammond. But Jack was still the man who had freed him, given him the opportunity to try and free his people, was still the man he respected most, the only man besides Master Bra’tac he would willingly, unquestioningly follow. The only thing that made this desertion bearable to Teal’c was if it was done under absolute possession. But Jack had considered retiring, leaving the SGC, for Daniel’s sake. What did Teal’c make of that? Or did doing it for love make it okay in Teal’c’s eyes? As he once would have chosen to leave the SGC for Shau’nac’s sake. 

“It’s not control, Teal’c,” he tried to explain slowly. “But I woke up this morning with four thousand years of memories I didn’t have yesterday. Can you imagine how… overwhelming that can be? I can see ancient Uruk, remember walking its streets, feel its strong sun beating down on my head, smell its open market stalls, walk the cool, quiet halls of the Temple Eanna. It’s so easy to get lost in the memories… Not seduced, but… well, okay, seduced. For a while. He’ll come back to us, Teal’c. He will. And if he doesn’t… we’ll just have to remind him he has a life of his own to come back to.”

Teal’c studied him intently for a moment. But all he saw there was Daniel. And Daniel he did trust and did believe. He nodded. 

“He’ll kill me in a heartbeat,” Gilgamesh said into the mirror.

“No he won’t,” Daniel replied.

“Yes, he will,” Teal’c answered both of them.

Å 

Jack wasn’t quite sure where he was or how he got there, but he was absolutely positive of one thing. He was pissed as hell and *someone* was going to pay. Daniel, for preference, if he could find a way to make this his fault. Then he stumbled for a second time, letting out a yell, the same one that had jolted him out of the foggy half-sleep he’d been in.

“Goddamnittohell. Where the *fucking* hell are my boots?”

Then he reached for a piece of equipment so essential, it was practically grafted to his body. But it wasn’t there now. “Where the *fucking* hell is my P-90?”

“And my shirt.”

“And my pants!”

“What the *fucking* hell is going on?”

At least he was still in his boxers, and under that his athletic supporter. Neither as clean as they had been when he put them on, but…

“What the *fucking* hell is going on? Where’s my team? Where are my clothes?” he demanded, bewildered, staring out at the same anonymous first-growth rain forest of pines they seemed to find on half the planets in the universe. He’d had dreams like this, wandering naked in public for no apparent reason… 

//I don’t like clothes,// explained… the… aw crap.

“Who the *fucking* hell are you?”

//Enkidu.//

“And who the hell is Enk… aw crap. You’re the dead Babylonian in the jar.”

//I am of Uruk, not Babylon.//

“And now you’re in my head.”

There was no requirement to reply, so Enkidu did not.

“Aw crap. Where are we?”

//Dilmun.//

“And that is…?”

//Where Marduk is.//

“Marduk. The Goa’uld Marduk.”

Again, Enkidu saw no reason to speak. A dead Babylonian of few words, Jack acknowledged. More words than most dead Babylonians, admittedly, but…

“We’re going to try and take down Marduk, aren’t we?”

//Yes.//

“Of course we are. Alone. No backup, no weapons, no pants and no fucking boots. Great.”

Jack stopped and deliberately sat himself on a log. He was still confused, but he was remembering some things. Like, for instance, ambushing Daniel at his place and… his body heated at the memory. And it wasn’t just him luxuriating in the remembered passion. He had lost himself in Daniel that night. Literally, or so it seemed.

//I can show you much more,// Enkidu said. //The temple girls of Eanna, servants of the great Ishtar, She who is a true Goddess and not a *fucking* snake, know a thousand ways to arouse a man, and they showed me many. I know a few hundred more no girl can attempt. You desire this knowledge.//

Yeahsureyoubetcha. But. “Not gonna do me any good if I’m dead.”

//There are none who can stand against us.//

And, quite suddenly, Jack remembered hitting Marduk’s stronghold on Kudurru like a fucking hurricane. Which explained some of the stains on his shorts. Blood. Someone else’s. Christ, he had been a one-man wrecking crew. Or… not him. He had just been the vehicle, along for the ride. The jockey had been Enkidu. He didn’t recognize any of those moves, but he thought it might be interesting to try a few out on Teal’c. Just as it would be more than interesting to try a few of those other moves on Daniel. As soon as he got back…

“Aw crap. Where the *fucking* hell is my GDO?”

He was AWOL, next thing to naked, in enemy territory, without a single weapon, sharing his head with a dead Babylonian, and no fucking GDO! He couldn’t *get* back home without it!

“What, you couldn’t stop long enough to pick up a GDO on your way out?” he demanded of his room-mate.

//I know nothing of this GDO of which you speak,// replied Enkidu loftily. //If it is important, my beloved will bring it with him when he comes for me.//

“Your beloved. The other dead Babylonian in the jar.”

//Yes. Gilgamesh. He would not take a body unless it was demanded. He thinks it would make him a Goa’uld. My beloved thinks too much. But now, I have made it demanded he come after me.//

“How come?”

//I left him. I took you. He will know I have come here, to Dilmun, seeking Marduk. He knows I will fall into a trap here—//

“A trap!”

//—and he will have to come and rescue me. And once I have him here where Marduk is, the rest will be simple.//

“The rest?”

//The Beast Marduk, the *fucking* snake Marduk, stole my beloved’s body many thousands of years ago, and wears it still. We will destroy the Beast, recover my beloved’s body and place him back in it. Gilgamesh the King, Gilgamesh my beloved, shall live again.//

Jack blinked. “I think I see a flaw in your plan.”

Enkidu, the dead Babylonian of few words, waited for enlightenment.

“You don’t have a Goa’uld walking around in your body, do you?”

Enkidu mulled that over. //No. I am dust. I have been dust for thousands of years.//

“You’re not planning on taking up permanent residence with me, are you?”

He mulled that over, too. An uncomfortably long time.

//No. Your body is old and the knees no longer work properly. I must have a body that is young and beautiful. Perhaps I should have taken the other one after all. Even if he does think too much.//

“Woah! If you’re talking about Daniel, forget it. His body is mine. All of it. *Not* sharing.”

//My beloved is beautiful, past all compare. Even the very Gods lust after him. Ishtar, the false god *fucking* snake Ishtar, wanted him for her mate, but he refused. Marduk so wanted him, he stole his body.//

“Yeah, I hear ya. I have the same problem. Snake-heads just love Daniel, even when he’s mouthing off at them. Especially when. So do alien princesses, Destroyers of Worlds, slimy sea monsters, big stinky lizards, Jaffa-murdering white clouds, intelligent water, psycho junkie bounty hunters, Pentagon paper-pushers… well, just about everyone and everything, actually.”

Both egos sighed with the same set of lungs.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if Daniel had the first clue the effect he has on susceptible folks. But he doesn’t.”

//My beloved is all too aware what happens to others when he smiles. And he uses it without mercy, to bind their loyalty and enslave their hearts. He has enjoyed the bodies of many, man and woman.//

“It doesn’t drive you nuts? Jealousy?”

//Yes. It does. But his heart is given to only one. Me.//

“And that makes it all right with you?”

//No.//

“Now, see, at least I don’t have to worry about that with Daniel. I don’t think he’s had more than half a dozen lovers in his life, two, maybe three by choice and the rest not his fault since he was coerced or under alien influences of one kind or another… But I do have to worry about all the *fucking* predators out there, because one and all, they’re drawn to him like moths to a fucking flame, and he never sees it coming. Never.”

//And he thinks too much.//

“And talks too much.”

//And he must always have his way, because he insists it is just.//

“No matter how flaky it sounds.”

//Or how dangerous it is. And he pays no attention to the danger, because he is only one third mortal…//

“And thinks he can’t be *fucking* killed, no matter how many times he is.” 

//And it does no good to resist his will, because--//

“He’s always right.”

Brooding eyes, another long sigh, and Jack got up and continued down the path, mulling over all the times Daniel, against all reason, all logic and sense, all political necessity, had nevertheless been right… until he tripped on another cutting stone, and let out a yell. 

“I’m not going another *fucking* step without my boots!”

He turned around, grumbling at the tricks of dead Babylonians that they shouldn’t bother trying any more since they wouldn’t *fucking* work. He trudged up the path, back the way he had obviously come, although he couldn’t remember it, to catch sight of his boots, dropped by a convenient log. He sat to lace the right on again. But he was not so engrossed he could miss the subtle rustle of undergrowth a hundred yards away. Then another, and another… Surrounded. He reached automatically for a P90… that wasn’t there.

“That trap you were expecting? Here it is. Fucking perfect,” he grumbled as the dead Babylonian merely shrugged. And the stunning force of a zat’ni’katel blast caught him between the shoulders, making him drop the left boot on the path before he tumbled in a heap.

Å 

Jacob Carter was there at the Stargate gantry to wish his daughter good bye, and good luck. He glanced at the two men who would be going with her, standing facing each other in challenge, and cocked her a speaking look. “You sure you wouldn’t like me to come along on this one, Sam? To play referee, maybe?”

“I’m going to be surrounded by big, tough Marines, Dad,” she whispered back. “That’s enough of an official back-up, don’t you think?”

Jacob took a long, assessing look at the two remaining male members of SG1. 

Whether he knew it or not, Daniel had taken on an indefinable air of command over the past few hours. Even the Marines were responding to it, giving him a wide personal space in the embarkation room that they hadn’t been inclined to afford him before. Some considered him the SGC mascot, their pet geek scientist, no more nor less annoying than the other civilian consultants they had to baby sit on missions, to be guarded and even indulged but not respected. A blessedly small number found him a severe irritant to be tolerated, barely, careful not to let Colonel O’Neill, Major Carter or the Jaffa get wind of their attitude. More than a few secretly found him to be a seriously attractive man they would use every excuse to bang up against. Those more experienced, smarter, or luckier, had taken his true measure, and held all the respect in the world for his intelligence, ingenuity, experience and courage, if not his soldiering skills. But all of them now looked at him with blinking wonder and uneasy awe as he threw commands that they instantly obeyed. Even the smitten ones were taking care not to offend this new formidable presence.

The Marines might not be aware of the subtle change in their response, but Jacob was, and he knew Teal’c saw everything. Including the long speculative full-body study their new companion was glancing toward Major Samantha Carter. As her father, Jacob’s biological imperative made him sensitive to every such glance, but he knew as well as Teal’c that Sam had yet to notice the interest. Teal’c was clearly not amused. The Jaffa took great care to place himself dead in the way of every such furtive ogling.

Holy Hannah, this was going to be a fun mission. Jacob was *almost* sorry he wasn’t going along.

At last, the Stargate opened, and General Hammond gave the go-ahead. Major Carter, in command of the rescue operation, shouted out the order to proceed. 

Kudurru on the other side had once been a mining colony of the Goa’uld, rich in naquadah, trinium and other rare and valuable resources. As recently as a day ago, it still had been. Then something had happened. In the distance, smoke still rose from charred heaps and damaged buildings. The pyramid landing-post for ha’tak mother ships had lost its top two thirds, the remainder was no more than crumbled heaps of sand. 

A group of sullen, suspicious, but unarmed humans stood waiting at a distance from the Gate. Then one of their number was nominated – or rather, pushed ahead by his companions – to meet the visitors. At Carter’s brief hand signal, SG3 fanned out in precision formation to secure the area, and keep watch on the people in the small but growing crowd.

The nominated spokesperson staggered forward warily, reluctantly, stared at Teal’c’s gold seal, then went to his knees, head bowed in submission. And before the first question was asked, he shouted, “It wasn’t us, divine ones! We had nothing to do with the wild man who came through the Chappa’ai. We did not aid him. We were not asked to join in the defense of the Temple, and he was gone before we knew the damage he had done.”

Daniel stepped down to meet the poor man, lifting him off his knees. “We are not the Goa’uld, your masters. We’re the Tau’ri. Don’t be afraid. We’re here to help.”

The man blinked in disbelief. “Tau’ri! He said you would come after him.”

“Who said?”

“Enkidu. He said you would follow, that we could trust you.”

“Enkidu. You’re sure he said his name was Enkidu?” Daniel demanded fretfully.

“What happened here?” Sam asked.

“First the god Marduk came with his entourage, five days ago. It had been so long since last he was here himself we had almost forgotten him. He immediately set guards, barricaded himself in the Temple, as one afraid of shadows. But then, yesterday, there came the wild man, Enkidu. He was like a whirlwind. Though he had no weapons, he took them from the Jaffa he killed, and soon had destroyed almost all of them. Then he went to the Temple. Even those great walls and metal doors could not withstand his wrath. Great explosions we heard, and screams. Then the great pyramid tumbled to the ground. Then the Chappa’ai was opened again, and the false god Marduk left, and every Jaffa who still stood. There are none left among us, now. None!” The man stopped to marvel at this unprecedented state, blinking in bewilderment. Then he shook his head and continued with his tale. “Then Enkidu came among us. He asked where Marduk had gone, the symbols on the Chappa’ai. We did not know this. We feared his great anger, but he was kind to us. He told us you would soon follow. That you, the Tau’ri, children of the world we first came from, would tell us what we must do, how we must go on, to free ourselves forever of the evil false gods. Did he speak the truth? Will you help us?”

“He spoke the truth,” declared the tall, straight king with the fierce, noble eyes. To look into his face as he said these words was to believe him implicitly, follow him wherever he chose to lead. “These men here will protect you until we can return, or send more help to you. Be of good cheer. The false god will not dare to return here. He will be too busy running from the wrath of Enkidu. And mine.”

Gilgamesh turned to Sam and Teal’c. “Marduk has lost many of his guard. Now is the time he will go to Dilmun, to fortify his position as best he can, and await Enkidu, setting his traps with care.”

“Whoa! Wait a minute,” Sam protested even as Gilgamesh strode to the DHD. “We aren’t going alone, just the three of us. But you just promised these people you would leave SG3 with them.”

“Where we are going, not all the warriors on Earth will make any difference. Far better just we three, who can move more quickly, hide more easily, strike far more effectively. And remember, Enkidu is before us, clearing the way.”

“You believe he has gone to Dilmun?”

“Where else?”

Sam and Teal’c exchanged a glance that reluctantly admitted they had little choice but to follow where the ancient King of Uruk wished to take them. So Sam called to Major Griff, ordered him to send a report back to General Hammond via the MALP transmitter for instructions in handling the people of Kudurru, and inform him that SG1 was going on to Dilmun, and might need ordnance and back-up there.

By the time Daniel had dialed Dilmun, he was over the momentary panic of knowing Jack had apparently not remembered his own name when he came through Kudurru. “On the other hand,” he observed to Sam, “He was behaving in a thoroughly Jack-like way.”

“Meaning?” 

“Well, you tell me just one thing he likes better than blowing the hell out of the Goa’uld?”

The obvious retort came instantly to Sam’s mind: “Blowing the hell out of you.” 

No, she would not say it. A career succeeding as a woman in a man’s world and therefore learning when to keep her mouth shut came to her rescue to help her not say it. But that didn’t banish the image, and Sam squirmed. And by the glitter in Daniel’s not-Daniel eyes, Sam guessed that Gilgamesh had read her mind. And was sharing that knowledge with Daniel, because, yep, there came the fiery blush in Daniel’s yes-Daniel cheeks. 

Å 

Unlike Kudurru, the colony of Dilmun was far from the Stargate. According to the UAV that had been sent through earlier, the pyramid landing pad and Temple that formed the focus for the nearest settlement was ten miles away, over obscuring hills and valleys of thick familiar forest.

Gilgamesh stopped and stood for a moment, simply breathing in the fragrance of growing things. “Ah. Pine, and cedar. These were precious to the people of Uruk, to all the kingdoms of Sumer. This is a paradise to us. Or so it would be without false gods to enslave us.”

Teal’c knelt beyond the stone dais to look for tracks in the soft earth. Gilgamesh joined him.

“A party of six,” Gilgamesh read easily, as easily as the talented and experienced Teal’c. “And close behind them, one man alone. These are the boots of the Tau’ri, are they not?”

“So they are,” Teal’c acknowledged.

“You and Daniel must be of good cheer, then. Your Jack is still very much present and aware. Enkidu does not wear boots.”

Teal’c nodded noncommittally. The three prepared for a long hike, and started their journey. Sam took watchful guard while the two men studied the trail on the ground. They worked in silence. Every step brought them closer to the Colonel, but he had a day’s head start on them, and could not have failed to reach the Temple of Dilmun by now. What had happened there? Was he a prisoner? Was he still alive? Had he destroyed Marduk and his remaining entourage already?

The questions distracted Sam enough that she almost tripped over Daniel, kneeling next to Teal’c over the marks on the earth she could barely see.

“He took off his boots,” Teal’c growled. “You said Enkidu does not wear boots.”

“Yes, but he returned after a very short while to put them back on.”

Sam realized at once the implications. “Enkidu’s influence over the Colonel is growing.”

“But not yet complete,” Gilgamesh reminded them. “I know you are concerned, but I assure you that your Jack is safe enough in Enkidu’s care.”

“Yes, but you lie,” Teal’c lashed out.

Gilgamesh straightened, his eyes glittering angrily as he faced the Jaffa. He made no attempt to defend himself, simply waited. And Teal’c, for once, exploded in speech, shocking both who knew him. “You said the Ghost Keeper souls cannot make you do what you do not wish to do. But if O’Neill was in control of his own body, he would never have left the SGC. Or if he did, he would have come back. Even without a GDO, he would have found a way to come back. Therefore, you have already lied to us. The first and largest.”

“Your judgment against me is based on a guess. You guess Jack does not want to be here, does not want to do this. How do you know that is so? How do you know he has not secretly wanted to escape the Tau’ri, the uniforms, the commands, the cold concrete and metal walls, the constricting ways? You do not know what it might be like for him, riding the wind that is the wild man, Enkidu. He has a wildness and a love of freedom, does my beloved. He is one with his body and the earth, the wind, the sea. It can be intoxicating, to be so free, to be so whole.”

Teal’c shook his head, rejecting the idea. “Not O’Neill. He cannot be seduced so. Freedom he already has, all Tau’ri have it, walk in it, wear it like the innocent nakedness of children. And he already has the wisdom of the body. Enkidu could not entice him with things he already has.”

“And what of the knowledge he does not have?” Gilgamesh challenged, only to have Daniel emerge, and shut down this dangerous conversation. He knew what the Sumerian would say. That what Enkidu offered was knowledge of physical love between two men. Something Jack desperately wanted, needed. Because he must feel it was the only way he had to put a claim on the man he loved, the only hold he could use to bind Daniel to him. And what Jack hadn’t understood was that no such bonds were necessary. Daniel could no more leave him than cease to breathe.

“Teal’c. Please. Stop.”

That plea was one of the few that could reach the Jaffa, even as he plainly suspected the motives and direction behind it. 

“Daniel has trust in me,” said Gilgamesh.

“Danieljackson believes in you. There is a difference. I do not. I know what it is to believe in a false god. Perhaps, Danieljackson, you should consider what it means to believe in a false hero.”

Daniel sighed. He had to admit Teal’c made a good point. “Well, keep watching, then. And Sam, keep the Ghost Keeper handy.”

Sam stiffened and whirled. “What?” Hammond had commanded her to take the device, but keep it hidden, secret from Daniel. If Gilgamesh and his friend wanted to keep the bodies they had appropriated, all they needed to do was destroy or lose the Marduk Sphere.

Gilgamesh smiled at her reaction. “I have been its prisoner for four thousand years. You think I would not know when it is near? Be easy. It makes no difference. Let us go. We draw ever closer to your Jack and my Enkidu.”

Å 

A bucket of water thrown in his face roused Jack to grudging consciousness. Aw crap, here we go again, he thought resentfully. One more gloating session with a bunch of over-dressed, over-the-top, melodramatic, megalomaniac snake-heads who thought they owned the entire fucking universe and everyone in it.

This time there were two Goa’uld, standing on a dais, natch, wearing robes of gold lamme and silver. It was Enkidu who took care to note that both bore ornate gold chains around their necks that held little vials of something bright neon green. Both beings had olive complexions, black hair and black eyes, the taller one with a beard. And, even by Goa’uld standards, Jack had to admit the taller one was something special in the looks department. For some reason, he was reminded of Daniel. Which was stupid, really, because Daniel was pale, blue-eyed and dark blonde… but this one had the same kind of transcendent beauty, the same… grace.

Inside him, the dead Babylonian howled. 

//*FUCKING* snake!//

Enkidu had been picking up on modern slang while carting around Jack’s body.

The tall beautiful one stepped down the wide marble steps of the great hall, coming closer, daring greatly, only because there were Jaffa all over the place, and two held the chains to the manacles that kept Jack’s hands fixed at the small of his back. Jack was on his knees on a cold marble floor, and wasn’t he going to catch shit from ol’ Doc Fraiser for that when he got home and needed physio one more time.

The Goa’uld studied him from a cautious distance, tipping his head one way and the other.

“Which one are you, then? Or are you both in there?” the Beast asked.

Enkidu growled, “*FUCKING* snake!” out of Jack’s mouth. It brought a Jaffa gauntlet smacking him in the face. Now is not the time to become a dead Babylonian of many words, thank you so much! 

“Ah. Enkidu, then. Good. Good. I had thought you dissipated long ago, gone, these many millennia. And may I take it Gilgamesh is on his way?”

There was a whisper of reaction in the hall, from the quiet audience of human slaves and workers gathered on the edges, under the colonnades holding up the roof. They regarded their Gods with wary caution and carefully cultivated deference, but their dark eyes kept sliding in wonder to the man in chains. 

“Does he have the Ghost Keeper with him?”

Jack had absolutely no idea if the Goa’uld Marduk was right or not. He couldn’t see how anyone could be following him. How would they even know where to look? Unless Daniel had worked his usual magic and got the other dead Babylonian, the one left behind in the silver jar to co-operate… In which case, there might be some Marines on their way, since Enkidu seemed so certain this Gilgamesh guy would know where to find him… Jack was confident no one at the SGC would have been crazy enough to let Daniel – or anyone else for that matter – anywhere near the Ghost Keeper after what happened to him. 

“Answer your God!” the First Prime demanded. Another heavy cuff across the head sent Jack reeling, and brought Enkidu out of hiding. 

“No God of mine, you *fucking* snake! Gilgamesh, Fifth King of Uruk, Lord of the Kullab Plateau, enemy of all false gods, who slew the giant Humbaba and the Heavenly Bull, is coming for you, Beast. Your life is measured in hours now, false god. He will not rest until you are dead.”

The people in the hall almost shivered, but remained silent. 

Marduk straightened. “Gilgamesh. At last… after so long… He will not harm me, Enkidu, wild man. You know that as well as I do. I am the one being he cannot harm. But I will kill him, finally, utterly.”

“As you should have done long ago,” muttered the other Goa’uld with a flash of dark eyes.

Marduk spared him only a glance. “Enough, Enlil. I grow weary of your boring lectures and warnings.”

“Yeah, it’s a bitch when you guys gloat, isn’t it?” Jack remarked. “Saying ‘I told you so’ has got to be grounds for execution, right?” 

“Could you not have taken a more comely body, Enkidu?” Enlil sneered. “This one is old and slow or you would never have been taken.”

“Fast enough to kick your snakey butts on the last planet,” Jack growled back. Enkidu more than endorsed his smart mouth. And both took it philosophically when the First Prime slapped them in the face with the butt end of his staff weapon. Like that was a surprise. But, while he couldn’t match Daniel when it came to Goa’uld-baiting, Jack just could *not* resist messing up these little snakey gloating sessions with a reality check.

“My Lord,” an underling Jaffa came and bowed deeply. “The sentry on the Chappa’ai reports that it was activated an hour ago. Three people came through, Tau’ri by their dress. The first is a woman, very tall, very pale and very beautiful, with hair like sunlight. The second is a Jaffa, large and strong, who bears the gold emblem of Apophis, the coiled snake.”

“The Shol’va, Teal’c,” hissed the lesser Goa’uld, Enlil. And at that name, the Jaffa muttered among themselves and shifted nervously, just as the locals had at mention of Gilgamesh.

“And the third is a man of surpassing beauty, Lord. Perhaps even the equal of your own.”

“Gilgamesh,” Marduk said in a sigh of intense satisfaction as he considered his captive. “Your lover has come for you, Enkidu, as we both knew he would.”

Aw crap, Jack thought. They think Daniel is… they think… they aren’t right, though, right? Right?

“You will not dare to meet him,” Enkidu emerged to do a bit of gloating of his own.

Those gorgeous sloe-dark eyes did that groin-freezing flashy thing Jack hated so much. “I have killed him once before. I have stolen his body and kept him a prisoner for four thousand years. I will have him again. You, Captain of the Dilmun Guard, you will lead my loyal troops to take the Tau’ri visitors prisoner. You may kill the woman and the Shol’va if you wish, but bring the beautiful one to me alive. My First Prime, you remain here with my personal guard to protect my person. Take this one to a cell. Do not lose him. And do not damage him. He who doubts me will be made to watch my inevitable victory as I destroy his beloved with my own hands for good and all.”

None of the Jaffa looked happy with their orders. Jack noted now that there were three distinct groups. The First Prime and maybe four or five others, Marduk’s personal guard, wore the traditional mail and armor, their foreheads bearing a curious little squiggle that Daniel would probably recognize at once. A much larger group, with a slightly different squiggle, were survivors from Kudurru. The local Dilmun contingent wore less elaborate armor, and their forehead symbols were a small sun surrounded by wavy rays. These guards looked distinctly nervous, glancing among themselves and mouthing the names, “Master Teal’c of Chulak” and “Gilgamesh the King”. As for Marduk’s First Prime, he dared argue. “My lord, this one, Enkidu, is dangerous. Now that we know Gilgamesh is coming, we no longer need him. Must we…”

Marduk’s eyes flashed and he roared, “Obey!”

Ooh, touchy.

Jack and Enkidu together had just decided their Jaffa guards wouldn’t make it to the next corner alive… when they cuffed him hard across the back of the head, dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

Å 

“It is very simple,” Gilgamesh explained slowly for the third time to the reluctant remaining two members of SG1. “We need one of us inside the Temple. I am the proper one to go.” He held an empty left boot tightly in his white-knuckled fists. 

“No,” Teal’c objected yet again.

“No,” agreed Sam. “Look, Daniel, Gilgamesh… whoever. Marduk already has one of the two people he fears most in a cell inside that installation. All he’s waiting for is the other, and he’ll kill you both. That’s the whole point to a trap. And this time, he has no Sphere to keep your…”

“Soul.”

“Consciousness,” Sam corrected, stubbornly, “alive.” 

//I cannot talk to the witch,// Gilgamesh confessed. //She will not listen. And the Jaffa mistrusts me. You must convince them, Daniel.//

Daniel sighed, hanging his head and shaking it, turning Jack’s boot restlessly in his hands. “Guys, I know it seems like a bad idea, but you don’t know… It’s not just me in here anymore. Gilgamesh is a warrior. The greatest warrior of his time. You saw what Enkidu did to Kudurru? Well, he’s got nothing on Gilgamesh. Believe me. I… We can handle this. All we need is to know you’re ready to help, backup, in case things go bad. I can get in and out of there with Jack, and the Jaffa will never even know I’ve been there.”

Teal’c and Sam both looked at him with such deep skepticism… they really believed his fighting skills were for shit. Always had and always would, no matter how many times he displayed abilities in the field every bit as lethal as their own. Admittedly, he was much more dangerous with his mouth, but…

//No matter,// Gilgamesh commented in quiet fatalism. //They are about to receive proof.// Daniel didn’t have to ask why. They were his senses, after all, that told Gilgamesh that an armed squad of Jaffa were attempting to surround and ambush them. He glanced at Teal’c and Sam, to see his brother and sister had made the same determination an instant later. 

They had just time to drop to cover, when the first staff weapons blew holes in the path where they had been. The Jaffa guards attempted to circle around behind them, but Daniel/Gilgamesh had faded out of sight, into the underbrush, to meet them. In a flurry of kicking feet and slashing arms, bodies flew back and fell still to the ground. 

//You are most agile,// Gilgamesh praised as Daniel stood, amazed, in the middle of a pile of dead Jaffa. //Quick and strong. I doubt I could have done any better in my own body.//

“Um, thanks,” Daniel gasped, shivering a little in reaction. Teal’c and Sam ran up to survey the damage, every bit as amazed as their friend.

“Uh… Daniel… How…” Sam began, gobbling.

“I have no idea,” he confessed. 

Teal’c considered then said, “What do you wish us to do?”

Å 

Jack awoke to a soft hand nudging his shoulder. He was about to whirl into action to take advantage of any chance to escape, but the visitor dodged quickly out of his way, and when his eyes cleared, he saw a wide-eyed serving girl, wordlessly offering him a tray of food and a cup of water. 

Breakfast. Sweet. 

“I take it they haven’t caught the Tau’ri yet? Expect it to take a while, do they?”

The girl frowned, puzzled.

“If you’re feeding me, you must expect to need me alive for a while. Or else why bother?” he asked reasonably.

The girl glanced warily to the door, then whispered, “It is true? Has the Great King Gilgamesh returned to free us?”

“Looks that way,” Jack agreed with a shrug.

“We had thought the promise foretold was all lies, rumors, fairy tales.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s what I always say. And he proves me wrong. I hate when that happens. So. What’s your name?”

“Ria. I am a handmaid of the Temple, as was my mother before me, and hers before her, in unbroken line back to the last Priestess of Eanna – the last Priestess of the True Goddess Ishtar, and not the *fucking* false snake Ishtar, whom the great King Gilgamesh killed before he was finally overcome.” She was a pretty girl, her innocent young beauty reminding him suddenly of Sha’re. The same smooth, golden skin, the same luminescent dark eyes and shining black hair. She wore a simple shift of white homespun cloth, a leather belt and sandals. But, unlike any of the other servants about the place, she wore a very elaborate necklace, that looked to be fashioned of golden and lapis lazuli beads, from which hung two bulbous pendants that no self-respecting fashionista would be caught dead in. She saw his eye drawn to it and smiled, running her fingers over it. “This is the token I bear of my ancestress, the last Priestess of Eanna. This cone represents the Great God Anu, and this, the True Goddess Ishtar. It is one of the few tokens we brought with us from the First World.”

“Nice,” Jack nodded. The dead Babylonian within wanted to study it a bit longer, puzzled, since he had no memory of any of the servants of Eanna wearing such a -- //God-awful clunky piece of over-the-top gaudy jewelry?// Jack supplied in the pause. //Yes,// the dead Babylonian of few words agreed simply. 

But Ria was speaking again. “You are Enkidu, the Wild Man, truly?”

“Part of me is, I guess,” Jack confessed, falling into the food. “For the last few days. Otherwise, I’m Jack O’Neill.”

“Of the Tau’ri. We had thought they were lies, rumors and fairy tales, too.”

“Oh no, we’re real enough. Most of the time.”

The girl took another wary glance at the door. “If the Great King has come at last, truly… know that we are ready.” 

“Ready for what?”

The girl’s eyes blazed, and not in that weird, nasty Goa’uldish way, either, but with fire and determination. “We who dwell in the Garden of the Sun are his people. Every one of us is his direct descendant, his blood, his bone. We have kept the legends alive all this time, awaiting his return. Sometimes we have tried to free ourselves, and have failed. We have not been warriors since we were ourselves Tau’ri. Such training and knowledge has been forbidden us, along with the weapons we would need to free ourselves. Instead we are farmers, miners, crafters, servants. But still his blood runs strong in us all, and with his great courage and wisdom to lead us into battle against the accursed and hated false god, we must succeed. We are ready to follow wherever he leads us, to do whatever he wills. Have no fear, Enkidu. The people of Dilmun, the children of Gilgamesh, stand with you.”

Oy. “Farmers, miners, crafters and servants. Great. That’ll be a lot of help, thanks. Just… wait for the word, okay?”

“What word, Enkidu?”

“You’ll know it when you hear it,” Jack promised, trying not to overplay the heavy portent. That would just be so… arch. “How many Jaffa are here?”

“The false god brought five of his personal guard with him, along with his First Prime, and maybe twenty or thirty who were from Kudurru. But there was already a full company of Jaffa stationed here. Most have come through the Chappa’ai as replacements at regular times, but a few were recruited from the children of Gilgamesh. Traitors,” she spat. “At least… perhaps they will remember who they truly are when their King appears before them.”

“We can only hope,” Jack said with a brief grimace of a smile. Ria seemed to brighten at this. 

“So I will tell the others. I will return with more word in a little time. Have you any orders I may take to the people?”

“Just… wait for the word.”

Ria frowned seriously, committing this to memory. “Wait for the word. We shall know it when we hear it. I will remember.” Then she bowed, took Jack’s hand and kissed its palm. “Four thousand years we have awaited this day. Thanks be to you and to the Great King!” Then she skipped out, the least convincing resistance fighter Jack had ever seen.

Oy.

//They will be toast before Marduk’s trained troops,// Enkidu reflected gloomily.

“Ya think?” Jack agreed just as gloomily. “Aw, crap. I should have asked her to bring me clothes. And boots. Next time.”

Now that they were finally here, Jack’s tenant squatter had retreated to the background, content to wait. He was good at waiting. He was a hunter.

“Now, see, I never got the hang of that whole patience thing,” Jack confessed, hunkering down in a corner of his cell. He had a sense that the other was smiling. “And that’s it? Really? We just sit here and wait?” Apparently so. “You know,” he went on chatting, “I think you’re wrong. Your buddy Gil is still back at the SGC in that silver jar. He’s not with any of my team.” The knowing smile lingered in the back of his mind, and it was beginning to annoy the crap out of the landlord. “I’m just sayin’. After they saw what happened to me, no way would they let Daniel anywhere near that jar. So unless you think your Gil is hitchhiking with Carter or Teal’c…”

//No. Not a woman. Not a Jaffa. He’s with the beautiful one.//

“No. No way.” Jack squirmed. His while body denied it. Rejected it. Not Daniel. Not *his* Daniel, possessed by another. In any way. No way.

//My beloved is beautiful past all compare.//

“He’s okay, I guess, if you like brunettes. Me, I prefer dark blondes.”

//Ah, but you have not seen him as I knew him… If you cannot wait in stillness and calm, then perhaps I shall tell you a story.//

“Yeah. Sure. Right. Whatever.”

//Once there was a great king who was almost perfect--//

“Almost?”

//He had certain ego problems.//

“Well, don’t we all,” Jack quipped, settling himself into the role of heckler as if born to it. But as his tension began to ease, the threat assessment finished, the plans still mulling around in a stew of incomplete contingencies, lack of ordnance and unknowns, his control slowly slipped away, and the memories surged up… 

The memory flooded up through Jack, of a world new, bright and wondrous, and he was right there, seeing it, feeling it as if for the first time.

“We’ve found it!” exalted the man before him. “The Forest of Cedars, haunt of the evil giant Humbaba.” There was nothing in this man to suggest the Goa’uld Marduk, not with such joy lighting those dark eyes with a natural and totally human brilliance, not with the hungry curiosity making him pant in breathless eager exuberance for the adventures ahead. Then again, there was the long, curling black hair, and the long dark beard Marduk must have dispensed with somewhere along the line.

And then there were his own feelings as he stared in open adoration at that young, strong body. Pure, strong, swelling almost painfully in his chest, leaving little room for anything else. Love like the heat of the sun, all pervading, warming, heating, burning. 

Exactly. It was just like that for him, too…

Slowly, the man on the ridge grew even younger, more slender, beard vanishing, hair straightening, lightening to near-blonde and streaked from the sun, shortening to just a little too long, fine and soft as he remembered it, as it had looked when he first met… 

“We found it!” Daniel cried again, flinging his arms thrown wide to the awesome vista before them, though not so awesome as he, head back to laugh, blue eyes gleaming, grin like the sun itself. Brightening the world entire with sheer enthusiasm.

And for what? For trees. Nice trees, to be sure, but still… trees. Would he ever understand this man? And did it matter, when he could stand back and watch as the thrill of discovery poured through his beloved like the light of the sun into a deep chasm at noon? 

“You doubted me,” the other turned abruptly to face him. “Admit it, my friend. You doubted.” 

He could only shrug, as Enkidu remembered shrugging that long ago day, as he had shrugged on more than one occasion, unwilling to admit anything, certainly not that his beloved was, once again, against all sense, all reason, right.

The blue eyes laughed down on him, shining. “You recall our wager. You said I would not find the wind, the mist, that I was a fool to believe a travelers’ tale. Yet here we stand.” He strode closer, almost a swagger in those hips, a challenge in itself, to stand close. “I claim my winnings,” he said, voice suddenly low and sultry, his joy in victory transmuted to another, and for him equally strong passion.

Jack/Enkidu grinned back, and slowly dropped the girdle and loin cloth that was all he/they wore. “Claim what is yours, O king.”

Hungry explorer’s eyes studied and dwelled on every feature, every line, every curve, down his body and up again, making him shiver, making him glow with heat and sweat and yearning. One step separated them, just one. But he would not take that step. Let the victor claim all.

When his beloved reached, it was to take his neck and pull him into a kiss. Just lips touching, and that strong hand on his nape, holding him just so. Ah, but it was a wonder, that a man’s whole life, whole being could dwell in just the touch of lips, in the locking of eyes and the moving of tongues, dancing, flickering, then finally surging deep in possession, in sharing. That souls could meld in mouths sealed, breaths mingled, gentle suction pulling closer and closer. 

Almost enough…

Until the heat flared, between one breath and the next, and then it was not nearly enough, not enough touch, not enough skin, not enough hard, hot, sweating body moving on his. The wild fervor rose then, the fever, the hunger. It was always thus. Sometimes just a look was enough to set the fire alight. A kiss was just asking for more.

The other chuckled against his cheek, rubbing. “You should know better by now than to make wagers against me. I always win.”

He could only smile smugly as his beloved bore him down to the soft grass. 

“Who wins?” he chuckled back, feeling possessive hands sweep down his sides, closing inexorably on their target.

“You remembered to bring the oil?”

“Would I ever forget?”

“Does this mean you did not doubt me completely, then?”

He shrugged once more. “Perhaps… I did not care greatly, one way or another.”

“And now?”

“I find I am overjoyed you have found your goal, my King,” he gasped, even as long, nimble, well-oiled fingers discovered the porches of his channel. How had his beloved, sprawled all over him, not only got himself naked, but groped and explored him thoroughly, aroused him to breathless, mindless writhing, and still managed to draw the oil from the pack where it was stowed and pop the cork stopper? No wonder he was King. A man of astounding talents and capabilities. 

Wonder and astonishment faded to insignificance when the questing fingers, still bent on discovery, found deep-buried treasure. He cried out and arched off the grass, hips twisting and bucking as his erection filled painfully. 

“Claim me, claim me now!” he begged in a strained whisper.

Knees slid under his thighs, and he automatically wrapped his legs around his beloved’s slender waist, letting those talented hands lift his hips up to rest on the other’s thighs. Hands on his buttocks, lifting him. Fingers delving, pulling the cheeks apart, pulling him, pulling him, then something blunt and hot lodged just at his entrance…

Jack gasped, feeling it, for the first time. Feeling it. Knowing it. And maybe… freezing in the instant, fearing it. 

“My beloved,” begged the other softly, Daniel’s voice crooning, though the words seemed strange. “Beloved. Let me in. I beg. Let me claim your body, as I claim your heart, your soul. As you have claimed mine. Both are safe with me, I swear. I swear it. Now and forever. World without end. Let me in.”

“Yes.” There could be no other answer. With conscious will, he relaxed, he opened. Slick heat penetrated the first tight ring, the engorged width painful, for a moment. But he took a deep breath, and felt stroking, calming, soothing hands sliding up and down his sides, gentle words arousing him once more, and suddenly, his beloved was with him, inside him, part of him. Filling him, claiming him. Body, heart and soul.

For a moment, they went still. Then both began to move. And then came the touch, the magic touch deep within him, and wildfire erupted through him, making him shudder, making him scream, not in torment, but in a thrill of discovery of his own. Then urgent, knowing hands were on his shaft, sweeping up and down, drawing on, drawing out, thrusting within and he thrust himself into those gripping hands, slickness inside and slickness before, and it was too much, it was too close, too deep, too much, and he couldn’t hold, couldn’t stand, had to, had to… 

Even as something molten erupted within, he felt himself let go, let the ecstasy take him, surrendering with a cry, his beloved’s name.

“Gilgamesh!”

//No! Not… No…Daniel, not…//

//Gilgamesh.//

“Daniel. Daniel. My beloved is Daniel.”

The memory of warm, languid aftermath, wrapped hot and sweating, rolling in grass, brought back the man with the olive skin, not pale gold, dark curling hair and beard, and dark eyes. A man now with a Goa’uld living behind those dark eyes.

Jack shook himself, and glared at his own heaving sweat-soaked body in chagrin. The not-as-clean-as-this-morning shorts and supporter were even less clean now. He could only hope that kid Ria returned soon with another meal, so he could ask for a change of clothes. A bath. A cold shower. Boots.

Restlessly, Jack got up and paced his cell again, uncomfortable with anything and everything going on in his slum tenement of a head right now.

When he heard footsteps outside his cell door, he knew it wasn’t Ria. Not unless she had gained a few pounds, put on boots, and had a bunch of armor-plated Jaffa with her.

The door opened again, and the Goa’uld Marduk entered. The scum-sucking snake just sauntered in, without a guard, no weapons Jack could see, and with a smug, gloating fucking typical look on his admittedly gorgeous face. Not so tall close up like this, either. Just about Danny’s height. Danny’s build… 

And then the eyes flashed, and that harsh, alien voice spoiled the picture.

“So. Enkidu. How does it feel to be free at last? To live again? For however short a time that may be.”

“The name’s Jack. Jack O’Neill, Colonel, United States Air Force. And if you’re just here to rub it in, you’ve done your bit, you can take your snakey butt right on out of here.”

The Goa’uld laughed. “I see you have found a host to fit you. Good.” The creature gave him a long, considering look, almost caressing his bare chest, down to his flat stomach and lingering over the less-than-fresh and somewhat over-stretched front of his shorts. It sent goose-bumps down Jack’s spine, and thinned his mouth to a hard, iron line.

“Perhaps my brother Enlil was overly harsh in his estimation of this host.”

“Oh, you have no chance in hell,” Jack purred. “And you’ve got a nerve…” 

Jack struck out instantly, gripping the Goa’uld tight and slamming him against the wall, his forearm against the bastard’s throat, ready to crush it. He used his body to imprison the other, hips against hips, chest against chest, locking the Goa’uld helpless against the wall. But although the creature was obviously in pain, hands scrabbling to loosen the choking hold, it still smiled. Still gloating. Christ, how Jack hated that. 

“You will not kill me, Enkidu.”

“No? And it’s Jack. Wanna bet?”

“You cannot.”

“Oh, I think I can. You wouldn’t be the first snake I’ve killed, and you sure as hell won’t be the last. Got you on the ropes right now. And don’t even think of calling for your guard. I can close your larynx in the blink of an eye. Quicker.”

“You cannot harm the body, Enkidu. You will not.”

Only when Jack tried to finish the job did he find his limbs tremble, and, unbidden, a memory flooded through him.

This body, this face, but… a different man…

Beloved. 

Standing naked and glorious in sunshine, laughing, eyes hot with love, lust and anticipation, holding his arms wide in invitation… and suddenly, once again, it was Danny’s face, his shining blue eyes… Jack’s hips, crushing hard against the other, began to move, just a little, the hands gripping tight began to flex, and his breath, hot on the other’s face, began to fan closer to the mouth…

“You cannot harm me, Enkidu. This is a pointless game.”

The Goa’uld voice shocked through Jack, shook him to the core, made him jump back, dropping the Beast.

And, of course, it gloated.

“You see? Even after so many long years, you still crave this body. You will not harm it. But as you do crave it…”

He approached, reached, and Jack moved to block. 

“No.” 

And to the writhing, screaming whimpering trespasser hammering at his skull to get loose, all he could do was growl again, “No.”

The Goa’uld grinned. And bowed. “Very well. I will leave you for now. We await your beloved together. And… I confess, Enkidu, I have missed you. And him. If the Tau’ri have brought the Ghost Keeper, perhaps I will not destroy you both after all, but put you back where you belong. And we can spend another four thousand years together.”

With that, the SOB left Jack to his hi-jacker’s company. The dead Babylonian didn’t seem to have much fight left, suddenly. No need, really.

“Couldn’t do it,” Jack explained gruffly. “Couldn’t let you do it. Would have been, oh, so very wrong, on every level. And you know it.”

The dead Babylonian curled tighter, and Jack went to sit in the corner again. Where he contemplated the item he had managed to palm while in such intimate contact with the slightly distracted Goa’uld. A small vial of bright green liquid detached from Marduk’s gold pendant.

“You sure this is what you wanted?” 

Å 

They dodged squad after squad of Jaffa guard, working their way closer and closer to the Temple of Dilmun. But with so many searching for them in unfamiliar territory, it was inevitable that they would be cornered. It had only been a question of when.

Five Jaffa attacked them. Within moments, only one was left alive, lying in the dust, with Gilgamesh poised over him, knee on chest, hands on his throat. A moment more and he would have died, the King pulling a knife to hold at the vulnerable throat, but the young man cried out. 

“Great King Gilgamesh! Mercy, I beg of you!” 

“Who are you that you dare use my name thus?”

“I am Hemesh of the people of the Garden of the Sun, one of your children, great King!”

“Mine? None of mine if you serve the accursed false Gods!”

“O great King, I had no choice. Because I was big and strong, I was chosen, taken from my home, made to take the prim’tah… made to serve or my mother and brothers would have suffered for my resistance.”

“And what now, traitor to the people? Traitor to your very blood! You have no choice now either. To die or to serve me as you have served the false god who enslaves your family. And when it comes time to chose again? What then? Will you chose the way that lets you live a little longer? A traitor cannot be trusted, a coward even less so.” 

Sam felt Teal’c stiffen beside her. She knew some, at least, of what he must feel now. How it must cut at him, to hear such condemnation from that mouth, in that voice. Shol’va, he was named, traitor, wherever they met with the Jaffa. But to hear Daniel say it… not Daniel, but still, in Daniel’s voice…

Yes, Teal’c acknowledged to himself, to hear his brother, this brother, say those words before him, wrenched at his very soul. Much as he respected and required respect from his fellow warriors O’Neill and Major Carter, what he gave and needed from the gentle scholar was something more nebulous, but all the more vital, for all the wrongs and wounds of the past, never completely healed. If he had to put a name to it, Teal’c could come no closer than… forgiveness. He thought he had it. He was sure of it. But to hear those words… 

Yet it was just one more sign that Danieljackson did not live behind those words. Did not hold that knife, or grip so cruelly tight to that boy’s neck. And if that hand came down to slash at that helpless throat, if the man before him murdered in cold blood even as pleas for mercy rang in the air, then Teal’c would know that Danieljackson had finally and completely lost possession of his body to that other. Whether he ever regained it or not, it was Danieljackson who would bear the memory of murder, Danieljackson who would accept in full measure the guilt of this blood on his hands, never thinking to hide behind or blame the will of another. As freely and willingly as he could give forgiveness to others, even and especially to Teal’c, he could never find it in him to grant absolution to himself. To know himself a murderer would destroy him. 

The very next moment after the young Jaffa died, so too would that enemy soul. Teal’c promised himself that. 

“O great King,” the young Jaffa wept tears, not struggling, nor flinching from the bright blade hovering over his exposed carotid. “Not for myself I chose now, but for my family. For my people. Save them, prevail against the false gods, and I will have died in peace.” With that, his hand plunged into his belly pouch to strangle the larval symbiote within.

“No!” cried a new voice, a gentler voice. And it was Daniel, dropping the knife and his grip on the young Jaffa, darting down to clutch at the young man’s wrist and wrench the hand out again. “No, please! Don’t. Serve yourself, your people, and live.”

“Great King?” the poor youth asked, eyes clouded in confusion.

//He will betray us// said one.

“He won’t,” said the other.

//You don’t know that. You can’t. If we release him, we give him the chance to turn on us, to put ourselves, our beloveds, all the innocent people of Dilmun, at risk. Better we put him to death now.//

“No!” Daniel insisted. “Maybe you don’t realize what he offered, what he risked. Removal of the symbiote, the Rite of Mal’Sharran, is the most painful death a Jaffa can know. That was not the act of a coward. Not all who once served the false gods only to turn on them are traitors. Some it makes heroes.” Daniel threw one brief glance to the side, to Teal’c, and he smiled. “Give Hemesh the chance, at least, to prove himself.”

//Why, when we could be sure of him in death?//

“We can’t all be heroes. We can’t all be warriors. But we all have to do the best we can with what we’ve got. We make mistakes. Of course we do. Or we’re stuck with circumstances we didn’t chose and can’t change. But if we’re lucky, if we’re very lucky, sometimes we get a second chance, to make things right. Giving someone a second chance is never a mistake. It’s called mercy, King of Uruk.”

//And if you are wrong, archeologist?//

“It is never wrong to offer mercy, king. Never.”

//He will turn on us and kill us.//

“He won’t.”

“I won’t,” the young Jaffa gasped out, bewildered by the argument swirling in that one face.

“I’ve had second chances, more than one. I try never to waste them. You’ve been given one too. If this boy does use his to repeat the same mistake, well, fine… Giving him a third chance to make the same mistake over again, okay, that would be our mistake…”

With an unwilling smile, Gilgamesh straightened at last away from the young Jaffa. //Very well. After four thousand years, perhaps it’s time to learn something new.//

“You have your second chance, boy. Use it well.”

”My King!” the boy sobbed in relief, kneeling deep and seeking to place his head under the king’s boot. Which made Dr. Daniel Jackson shudder and turn brick red, almost tripping as he staggered back.

“Ah jeez, no, please don’t do that! I hate when this happens. Teal’c? Can you give me a hand here?”

“It would be my honor, Danieljackson,” Teal’c bowed with a smile. 

Sam watched the two men deal with the grateful and incoherent young Jaffa, and sighed in relief. Whatever doubts Teal’c had about Daniel’s ability to deal with his possession seemed to have been set to rest. But whether it was the mercy shown the boy, Daniel’s implicit defense of the rebel shol’va, or the eternal constant of Daniel’s overwhelming embarrassment in the face of abject adoration… all things considered, she was betting on the last. Sam grinned. As long as Daniel could blush, he was still their own, their only, Daniel.

Then, suddenly, so fast none of them could react, another squad of five armed and armored Jaffa erupted into the clearing, surrounding them. Hemesh surged up from his knees, staff weapon in his hand and charging… to turn on the attackers. 

“No! Ollun, put down your weapon. All of you, put them down! This is Gilgamesh, the Great King, here to free us. He is our King!”

The squad leader, Ollun, glared at Hemesh, then at the strangers, hesitating. His squad, all bearing the sun symbol of Dilmun, also held their fire, waiting. And although it went sorely against the grain, SG1 waited too. Gilgamesh nearly howled, but Daniel held him still. He knew, and tried to make the ancient King understand, that here was a watershed moment. The best, perhaps the only chance of redemption Hemesh and the other children of Dilmun who bore the prim’tah might ever have. 

//Remember, Mercy, Great King. Now do your stuff.//

Gilgamesh stood forward. “I am Gilgamesh. Builder of the Walls of Uruk. Maker of Laws. Defender of the City. I have returned to claim what is mine. All that is mine and was taken from me by the Beast Marduk. Chose now, Children of Dilmun, but chose carefully, for you have only this one moment to do so. Who will you serve? The false God who keeps you and all your people slaves? Or the King who brings you Justice, Freedom and… Mercy?”

Å 

It was the First Prime who came to get him, a slimy son of a bitch whose name was close enough to Schlemiel that Jack refused to remember what it really was. It took Schlemiel and five of his guys to hold Jack down and put iron shackles on him, and in the end they had to zat him first. The wrist and ankle manacles were linked with real short chains so he could barely walk at all, and the Jaffa guard had to drag him along. Bad planning, really. In a true co-operative effort, Enkidu squirmed enough to break out of the firm grips, and Jack took advantage of some very unusual positions to get his light fingers into places they weren’t meant to go, and there was no need for Danny to ever learn they had been. The desired result being that the key to his chains finally ended up in Jack’s possession, with the Jaffa lieutenant so distracted, hot, bothered and annoyed that he was none the wiser for his loss. The small key joined a small cold glass vial rattling around in an over-stretched and, frankly, disgusting athletic supporter. 

The Audience Chamber was full, again. Marduk really loved playing to the crowd, and since the Throne was currently empty, he apparently meant to make an entrance. Big surprise. The Temple priests and servants were all ranged behind the empty dais, waiting quietly. The people of Dilmun filled as much of the colonnade and promenades as they could squeeze into. But the center of the Chamber was left clear, the Jaffa holding everyone back. 

Jack was unceremoniously dumped in the free space, Schlemiel’s vicious hand at his neck holding him on his knees. Jack peered around, trying to get an idea of the situation, and met Ria’s anxious, expectant eyes, riveted on him, fiddling with the two pendants of her gaudy necklace. He stifled a groan. She was still waiting for “the Word”. He could only hope she didn’t mistake anything out of his mouth as her signal. Perhaps he should have been more explicit in his instructions to her, made up a password. She would have liked a password, a secret handshake, a decoder ring… he could pretty much tell.

He mouthed a question – What’s going on?

Ria understood, but she shrugged. Don’t know.

There was a loud roar of noise just outside the Temple, an angry hissing buzz of all the thousands of people who had been unable to squirm their ways in, and so were given advance warning of what Marduk held in store. Whatever it was, it wasn’t popular. And in the chaos of shouts, gradually a name began to emerge, clarify, until all the voices outside were chanting it in unison… 

“Gil-ga-mesh! Gil-ga-mesh! Gil-ga-mesh!”

Aw crap.

Even as the audience inside became aware, what looked to be half the Jaffa on the planet flooded in through the open double doors, while the other half stood on the outside steps of the Temple to keep back the angry populace. All of them, inside and out, were armed and armored to the teeth and beyond, the Kudurru folks and Marduk’s own. Those coming in now, foreheads stamped with a little sun in the center of wavy rays to indicate they were the Dilmun guard, surrounded their bound, but walking prisoners. 

Teal’c, Carter and Daniel.

At least they looked healthy and in one piece. Not so much as a bruise or scratch. Just not free enough to do any good at the moment. And now roughly thrown to their knees at his side. 

Jack glanced at Daniel, wondering… Daniel glanced at Jack, wondering… 

Gilgamesh smiled. And Enkidu glowed. 

“I always claim what is mine, Wild Man.”

“I am overjoyed you have found your goal, my King. This time, I had no doubt.”

Daniel blinked, searching the other dearly loved face for some sign, any sign…

“God damn it, Daniel! *TELL* me you did *NOT* let a dead Babylonian take over your body!”

Daniel grinned, euphoria flooding through him. “Welcome back, Jack. We’ve come to rescue you.” 

“Yeah? So now what the hell do we—” That was as far as Jack got before Schlemiel cuffed him across the side of the head to quiet him. 

“You die for that,” Gilgamesh promised quietly. And Daniel, seeing the red welt rise on Jack’s cheek, to join a number of other highly visible bruises he hadn’t had back home, failed to mention anything about that Mercy thing.

Daniel managed to edge closer, feeling the Jaffa guards hovering close behind him and the others. He said in a whisper, “Now that the gang’s all here, I expect Marduk will soon be joining us.”

Sure enough, Schlemiel yelled for quiet and order, and commanded all to bow.

“Yadda yadda,” Jack grumbled. “You’ve got a plan, right? ‘Cause I gotta tell you, our plan sucked and this was it, getting captured. You do have a plan, right?”

“Getting to it, Jack,” Daniel assured him, watching as Marduk and Enlil entered. Okay, so the stolen body of Gilgamesh really was seriously attractive. Just a little off-putting seeing it had a Goa’uld running the show. But Daniel was looking for one thing, hanging around the false God’s stolen neck… yes, the necklace Gilgamesh had shown him, the one with the small vial of… the *MISSING* vial of bright green Barochda Blood.

“Uh-oh.”

“What? What uh-oh?” Jack wanted to know, alarmed. 

“It’s not there.”

“What isn’t?”

“Around Marduk’s neck. There should be a little bottle of green fluid. Like the one Enlil is wearing. It’s missing.”

“Won’t Enlil’s do?”

“No. It’s—” fake, Daniel wanted to finish, only to have the indignant First Prime give him a belt across the face. 

“Enough!” Marduk commanded, eyes doing that groin-twisting flashy thing yet again. “Do not damage that body. Not yet. Bring him forward.”

Jack could barely stop himself with writhing, trying to stop that son of a bitch from getting anywhere near Danny. Because he knew, he just knew… 

“Yes, you are beautiful indeed,” Marduk said, taking Daniel’s chin in is hand. “But are you Gilgamesh?”

“Occasionally,” Daniel confessed coolly, giving as good as he got in the critical once-over department. “Your body is starting to fray around the edges, isn’t it? Been a while since you had a good sit in a sarcophagus? Being on the run can be so inconvenient. You know, if you can’t take care of your toys, you oughtn’t to have them.”

Oh, good one, Daniel, Jack grumbled to himself. Get yourself smacked unconscious before I even get a chance to tell you that I have Marduk’s little bottle of green stuff stuck down my shorts, along with the key to my cuffs...

But Marduk only chuckled. “Enlil! What think you of this body? You have been complaining of yours for centuries. Time for a change, think you? What of this one? If it weighs with you, I find these blue eyes and this fair complexion extremely appealing.”

Enlil stalked around Daniel with a sneer, casting disparaging comments while his eyes dwelled lingeringly all the same, and stole covert glances at Marduk to gauge the truth of his statement. It was becoming pretty damn obvious to all concerned, in the anything-but-subtle tenting around Marduk’s groin. At last, Enlil admitted grudgingly, “I suppose it will do, for now.”

“That is what you said of this one,” Marduk reminded him with a flippant gesture of his finger to Enlil’s chest. “I find you depressingly predictable, brother. Unlike the Great King. Ah, I have missed you, Gilgamesh, my old friend.”

“Friend?” Gilgamesh challenged. “In what way have we ever been friends, Beast?”

“Who else knows you so well? Who else knows me, after four thousand years? I have confided secrets to you even Enlil does not know. Friends, enemies… does it matter, after so much time?”

“To me, it does, Beast. I never forget. And though this man with me speaks of Mercy, for you I have none. I never forgive. Not you. I will kill you, Beast.”

Marduk laughed, standing and spreading his arms wide. “Brave words, hero! But look around you! My troops, my slaves, my Temple, and you in chains on your knees before me, as are your only friends.”

Schlemiel, meanwhile, had been busy, and had found something in Carter’s pack… “My lord! Look! The Ghost Keeper!”

“Perfect! It could not possibly be more perfect!” Marduk exalted. “Here in my stronghold, my only enemy captive before me, and now, the fondest wish of my heart, the one thing I needed to make my victory over the Great Gilgamesh absolutely perfect! Think of it, my old companion. You and I, walking down the corridors of time for the next four thousand years, together once more. And if you are very, very good, I will allow you to have your beloved with you for company.”

Marduk commanded Schlemiel to come forward with the silver sphere, and the Captain of the Dilmun Guard with his staff weapon. 

“I have decided,” Marduk declared, “that you, Captain of the Dilmun Guard, Ollun, shall have the great honor of slaying the body bearing Gilgamesh, as a proof of your loyalty to me. You will do this with your knife, one slash across his throat. Then when the spirits within have been taken into the Ghost Keeper, and my brother has transferred into the lifeless corpse, we will place it in the sarcophagus, and the God Enlil will rise, alive again, a miracle to show the people that we are indeed your Gods!”

The distraction gave Jack a chance to get closer to Teal’c and Carter. “Daniel wanted Marduk’s green stuff? What the hell is in it, anyway?”

“Barochda Blood,” Carter explained. “Apparently, it will kill a symbiote and leave the host unharmed. Enlil’s is fake, according to Gilgamesh. It takes all that is in one vial to kill one symbiote. We had rather counted on being able to get Marduk with his own poison. But his vial is missing.”

“Yeah, but I have it,” Jack said. Still, he didn’t see what possible use it was going to do them now. 

The situation was as bad as it could possibly be. The Dilmun Jaffa, Ollun, stood behind the kneeling Daniel, one hand in his hair, wrenching his head back to bare his throat, his other hand bearing a knife with a wickedly long, bright blade. Even if Jack and Daniel let Enkidu and Gilgamesh loose to do their stuff, the Temple Audience Chamber was stiff with Jaffa, who had moved around to surround the stage where Marduk and Enlil were putting on their little play with their captured enemies. And although Ria and the other servants looked anxious and uneasy, ready but waiting, none of them were armed with anything more lethal than a silver drinks tray.

But Jack’s words galvanized Carter into action. She leaped to her feet, shouting “Now!” The ropes that had seemed to bind her dropped to the floor, and Teal’c was beside her, reaching to the way-too conveniently near packs for weapons, even as Jaffa all around them began firing with zats. Jack remained frozen in place, the only real prisoner in the whole fucking place. Even Daniel surged to his feet, launching himself full at Marduk’s chest, even as the Jaffa Ollun went after Enlil, and a third Jaffa brought down Schlemiel and wrested the Ghost Keeper from him. 

In moments, the Audience Chamber was secured, every foreign off-world Jaffa restrained or zatted, and locals had slammed shut the Temple doors to keep out any reinforcements. 

“Sir, the vial,” Carter demanded, holding out a hand. Jack went brick red as he squirmed around to grope one hand down his shorts. Carter went pink around the ears and turned her face away while Jack got out the key to free himself, then placed the little now-warmed bottle in Carter’s hand.

In the sudden shocked silence, Jack could clearly hear one aggrieved voice in the back saying, “’Now’? *That* was the word?”

Jack joined Daniel, pinning Marduk on his back on the steps of the dais. Sam passed him the green vial. But the hand that held it shook… 

“Great King,” said one of the Jaffa, the one currently kneeling on Schlemiel’s chest. “Allow me the honor.”

The hand still shook. “Four thousand years,” grated out a voice only barely recognizable as Daniel’s. 

Teal’c put a hand on that shoulder. “Let it go,” he said softly.

Daniel’s blue eyes, wild and a little insane, sought out Teal’c, then blinked, then cleared to sanity, and himself. His mouth shut tight, he nodded, and the vial changed hands yet again. 

Marduk screamed and struggled madly as the stopper was removed and it took a lot more hands to hold him down. But there were many volunteers. It was Hemesh who forced the small vial between his reluctant lips. He tried to spit it out, but Jack held his nose and forced him to gasp, swallowing. 

And then they stood away, watching. The banging on the door, of the still-loyal Kudurru Jaffa pounding to get in, thundered through the Chamber. 

“How long is this supposed to take?” Jack asked.

“I have no idea,” Daniel replied. “Gilgamesh never actually saw it work.”

Jack stared at his beloved, appalled. “You mean… it’s never been tested? What the fuck! What kind of plan is this, everything depending on a drug that’s never been tested? Damn it, Daniel—“

“It’s not like we had much choice, Jack.”

Slowly, inevitably, Marduk straightened himself out and stood. And his eyes flashed, just as Jack knew they would, and he laughed, also as expected.

“Aw crap…”

The door broke down and a flood of Jaffa sped through. Jack and Daniel would have let their room-mates free to do their worst, but Enlil and Schlemiel had both broken free in the confusion and crushing disappointment, and Enlil now held Ria by the neck, just over the ornate gold necklace she wore, legacy of the last true Priestess of Ishtar. All around the room, other innocent unarmed Dilmunites fell to the angry Kudurru Jaffa.

Reluctantly, SG1 laid down their arms. They were taken captive and bound, even as the rest of the loyal Jaffa filed in, and the hostage people were lined up and forced to their knees around SG1. Enlil took Ria with him to stand by Marduk. 

“Fools!” Marduk laughed as he held the empty vial in his hand, tipping it up to let the last bright green drop fall to the marble floor. Every eye in the Audience Chamber followed it, down to the final splat. “You thought to destroy me, did you? With my own weapon, the poison I have carried for millennia, said to destroy a Goa’uld parasite and leave the host body whole. A plot worthy of the great Gilgamesh, indeed. And yet, it failed. So, Barochda Blood is a myth after all. I had suspected it all along. No matter. Now. Where were we? I believe we were in the middle of an execution. You shall be first, Gilgamesh. Then your Enkidu and your Tau’ri friends, and then those who dared to rebel against me. Soon you will all pay for this atrocity, for daring to try and destroy me, your God!”

“Lord!” little Ria begged, still caught in Enlil’s hold, tears in her large, dark eyes. “Not all of us are heretics against you. Why do you cause us all to suffer?” 

“Ah, little priestess. Are you then loyal to me? Do you believe in me?”

“Only let me prove it, Lord! Even the smallest hand may bear a knife, in service to her God.”

“True, little priestess. Release her, brother.”

“Thank you, Lord. You will not regret,” she beamed, as she came forward, bowed and knelt before him to touch her lips to his hand. But then, sudden as a striking snake, she was at his throat, a small something in her hand that she forced between his open, surprised lips. “Not for long, anyway,” she added, with a ferocious grin. 

Marduk swallowed convulsively, gasped, his eyes flew wide, and then went curiously blank and empty as he fell bonelessly to the marble floor.

From out of the open mouth came the Goa’uld symbiote. It coiled and hissed and spasmed, inching its way toward the silver Ghost Keeper. But one small sandaled foot stomped it flat before it could reach its goal.

“In service to my God, mighty Ishtar,” Ria said.

Shock held everyone still for a moment, then fighting broke out again between the Dilmun Jaffa and their foreign fellows. The people rose up and helped, even as the word spread to the town outside the Temple, that Marduk was dead. 

Ria stood grinning over the God, the false God, the dead false God, then turned on Enlil, holding up a gold lump that Jack realized he recognized. It was part of that god-awful necklace of hers. There had been two big gold bulbs. 

“Enkidu said that we should wait for the word,” Ria said. “The word is *DIE* you *fucking* snakes!” And with that, she forced the second bulb past Enlil’s lips, and he screamed, and died.

Daniel – or, no, it wasn’t Daniel, was it? – strode to the dais where he could be seen and heard by everyone. He raised his hands and cried out, “Your false Gods are dead! Jaffa, do you chose to fight on, or will you join us and live free in the Garden of Dilmun? Or, if you chose, you may return to Kudurru, which is also freed by my hand, and that of Enkidu. I, Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, maker of the laws, builder of the walls, offer you all this Mercy.”

The Kudurru Jaffa were quick to do the math, on how few they now were, how all the Dilmun contingent were now loyal to Gilgamesh, and how far it was to the Gate. And they put down their weapons, and bent knee. 

Even Schlemiel. “Great King. Forgive me, I beg.”

“A second chance I offer you and your fellows,” Gilgamesh assured him. “Don’t fuck it up, for you won’t get another.”

Two bodies that weren’t dead lay upon the stone steps of the dais in the Temple of Dilmun. SG1, Ria, Schlemiel, Ollun and Hemesh all stood around them. 

“Former First Prime. You have the Ghost Keeper?” Gilgamesh asked. “Bring it here.”

Schlemiel fetched the small silver ball. Gilgamesh took it in his hands, and looked at Jack. At Enkidu. 

“We must leave these bodies, my beloved. They do not belong to us. But here are two – one that does belong to me, and another that is free of Goa’uld and needs only a soul. Will you take it?”

Enkidu grinned. “I might have known you would arrange all to suit you, my beloved. I will leave Jack, and take this one for my own.”

“If you’re going to do it you’d better be quick,” Sam warned, bending to check for pulses. Although both bodies had one, they were getting rapidly weaker, and neither breathed.

One beautiful head tipped back. Gilgamesh took a last deep breath… and Daniel let it go. Then he staggered, almost dropped the sphere, but Teal’c caught him before he could fall, and Enkidu caught the ball. Enkidu looked into the upside-down reflection for a moment… then Jack blinked. He frowned, testing for an unwanted presence, then sighed in relief. 

“Nope. He’s gone.”

Sam took the sphere, and first placed it against Marduk’s forehead.

The body convulsed, bucked up from the hips and groaned. Then the dark, beautiful eyes opened, and Gilgamesh smiled. And laughed. 

“Thank you, witch! Now for my beloved.”

Sam placed the sphere against Enlil’s forehead. But although a shudder seemed to pass through both the sphere and the body, there was no other reaction. 

“He’s not breathing,” Sam reported. “He doesn’t belong to this body. There may be some form of rejection…”

“No!” Gilgamesh cried out in anguish, taking the body in his arms. “Enkidu! Beloved! Live! I cannot bear to lose you again… Not again!”

Daniel vaulted forward, shaking Gilgamesh free, and began CPR. Sam checked for pulse, nodding encouragement to Daniel as he worked. It took a few nerve-wracking moments, but then the body shuddered, shook, coughed and lurched to life. 

For precious moments more, Gilgamesh cradled the other in his arms. Enkidu.

When the Wild Man could, he gasped out, “Claim what is yours, Great King.”

With a joyous laugh, oblivious to the large and growing audience of SG1, Jaffa and Dilmunites, Gilgamesh sealed his lips to the other. 

“I thank you,” Gilgamesh then said humbly as he released his beloved and urged him to stand. “I thank all of you. For your belief,” he told Daniel and Ria, “your courage,” he said to Jack and Hemesh, “and for your trust,” he said to Teal’c. 

“Hey, it was nothing,” Jack tossed off with an insouciant wave. 

Daniel rolled his eyes, then got a good solid look at Jack’s current state. How, he would never know, but in all the excitement, the… well, it just hadn’t registered on Daniel that Jack was standing in one boot and a pair of boxers that would never pass the hazmat procedures when they returned through the Gate.

Jack, meanwhile, turned to consider little Ria. “Care to explain how you knew to do that?”

Ria, descendant of the Last True Priestess of the True Goddess Ishtar, looked down at her ceremonial necklace. “It is such an ugly, lumpy thing, is it not? I always wondered why it was so important. I was told that the last Priestess was cunning and prepared for the day when Gilgamesh the King would come to claim all that is his. I knew only that the two bulbs possessed a strange green liquid, like unto that carried by the false gods, but not what it was or could do, not until we were told by the false god himself. My great ancestress must have stolen the green poison from both Marduk and Enlil, and exchanged colored water in its place.”

Jack shook his head. “A lot of that going around.”

Å 

SG1 was invited to stay and help celebrate, and after reporting to Hammond that all was well, they were allowed twenty-four hours. Not enough time for the kind of celebration Gilgamesh intended to throw, making up for four thousand years of lost time, but more than enough for the tired members of SG1. Especially when certain individuals craved nothing so much as to be alone with certain other individuals.

It surprised no one when, sometime during that raucous night, Schlemiel slipped away to the Gate and dialed himself out. Unfortunately, he chose to return to Kudurru, and was immediately taken into custody by SG3. The Marines were already pissed to be missing the big party. They were a little rougher with Schlemiel than strictly necessary in consequence. But what the hell, no harm no foul, he was still more or less upright when the Tok’ra came to collect him.

Ria was consecrated as High Priestess of the True Goddess Ishtar as Gilgamesh’s first official act as King of Dilmun. As his second act, he announced that he rather liked the Tau’ri custom of elections, and he would be holding one the next fall, and would hold one at more (or less) regular intervals after, for anyone who wanted to depose him as King and stand themselves. He whispered to Daniel that if he ever decided he didn’t want the job any longer, all he had to do was piss the people off, and it was off into the sunset for he and his beloved. Daniel explained the concept of taxes as a fool-proof way of doing just that.

Sam had confirmed that the mines of Dilmun were extraordinarily rich in naquadah and trinium, and Gilgamesh assured his Tau’ri friends that an amicable settlement would no doubt be reached between them. His smile as he said this led SG1 to believe the bargaining would be… intense.

As the wine flowed ever more freely, and the dancing more uninhibited, Enkidu took to glowering at his beloved, found in the midst of veils and naked limbs and giggling laughter. On that face, his glowers did not look so petulant as they had with Enlil behind them. Now they promised blood.

But suddenly, Gilgamesh looked up, his smile faltering as he looked upon his beloved. And he left the dancing girls to stand at Enkidu’s side. 

And for once, the dead Babylonian of few words, found voice. “I understand that you think the giving of your body for politics, for power, is right and just. But hear this, O King. That does *not* make it okay with me. Like you, I will claim what is mine. And like my friend Jack, I do *not* share.”

Gilgamesh only smiled, and held out his arms. 

Jack and Daniel fond themselves outside the Temple in the gardens under a full moon. There was a fountain spilling over azure tiles, and the sweet scent of jasmine and magnolia on the night air. 

Daniel sat on the edge of the fountain and trailed his fingers in the water. “You might want to thank me for coming to your rescue. It’s not like that happens every day.”

Jack stood just behind him, his own fingers playing in Daniel’s hair. “You let a dead Babylonian take over your body, you schmuck.”

“Sumerian, not Babylonian,” Daniel prompted.

Once, Jack could let it go. But twice? For cryin’ out loud, he was only human. “’Oh yeah, that makes a big difference. No offense, but I have to get my own lawyer.’ I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe they *let* you do it!”

“It was an accident, Jack, really,” Daniel assured him, feeling no good would come of telling him about Anise’s part in all of this. Someone was bound to tell him sooner or later, but bad news could always wait. “I was minding my own business, honest, when…”

“Daniel.” 

“Jack.”

“You put yourself in danger. You didn’t know what might have happened. When Marduk gave the order for you to be killed…” Jack shuddered.

“Well, yes, but Ollun and the guards were all on our side. I was never in any real danger.”

“That’s not what I saw. That’s not what I felt. I just saw you dying in front of me, again. I can’t take it any more, Daniel. I really can’t.”

Daniel understood. No one better. It seemed all the people he had ever loved had died like that, in front of his horrified, agonized, eyes. So he did understand Jack’s tight voice, his stiff stance. 

“You want me to quit the SGC.”

“I want us both to quit. I don’t care where we go or what we do, it doesn’t really matter, as long as we’re together. We’ve wasted so much time already. Who knows how much more we might have? Why waste one second of it if we don’t have to?”

“I’m sorry, Jack, but I just don’t think I can. There’s still so much to do, to see… so much at stake. I feel like I have to see it through. We both know the stresses that threaten to tear the SGC apart. Tear it down, make it small, turn it into a weapon instead of a gift. I’m the one who opened that damned Gate, Jack. For good or ill it’s open now, and I have a responsibility to stay and fight for it to be used the way it should. The way I know it has to be. If it really doesn’t matter where we go, what we do as long as it’s together… why can’t it be as part of SG1?” 

A voice from the darkness quoted softly, “‘Why do you come here, wandering over mountains, pastures and wilderness in search of the wind?’”

Daniel blinked, smiled and quoted back, “‘How can I be silent, how can I rest, when Enkidu whom I love is dust and I too shall die and be laid in earth forever?’”

Gilgamesh stepped out of the shadows with Enkidu at his side. They sat beside Daniel at the pool. The King said, “Once, I searched the world for immortality, for a way to cheat death, even though life had ceased to have any meaning for me. Or perhaps it was because of that. It even brought me here to Dilmun, the Garden of the Sun, at one point. But I was looking in the wrong place for the wrong thing. 

“Yes, you can run and hide. Death will find you even so. Or you can wail and fight it. Death will not care, still it will come. You can do as I did and search the world for a weapon to conquer it. No one knows better than I that there is no such weapon, and the very search is perilous. No matter what you do, where you go, Death will find you. How then, should you go on? In fear? In anger? In defiance? It makes no difference to Death. But none of those ways will give you what you truly want. They can only bind you, facing Death, seeing only that, while the life you have slips through your fingers, runs away into the sand, soured, poisoned. Accept it, Jack. Stop facing it, but turn away from it. Move on. Let Death look to its own, and you look to your own. One thing I know for certain, Jack. We cannot live our lives by giving up those things we fear to lose. That will only poison what life we have remaining to us.” 

“If you really want to retire, Jack,” Daniel said hesitantly, “if this is really for you…”

A memory came to Jack. Not his own, but one of Enkidu’s. Standing in a forest, looking forward to the next great adventure… pretty much all in a day’s work for SG1. And he grinned. “Why would I want to retire when I’ve got the best fucking job in the universe? When they actually *pay* me to kick serious Goa’uld butt?”

Daniel smiled and reached up for Jack’s hand and squeezed it. Jack grinned, that old O’Neill trademark shit-eating grin, and nodded, squeezing back. 

Enkidu smirked – another look on that face he could do much better than the late unlamented dead false god Enlil. “It does no good to argue, because—“

“He’s always right.” 

Å 

The party hadn’t begun to lose steam yet when SG1 had to pack up to go. Many of the celebrants insisted on keeping them company on the long walk back to the Gate, so that it took on the flavor of a parade more than anything else.

But, as they set out on their way, Daniel said, “Jack.”

“Daniel?”

“Boots.” 

He held out the left boot he had been carrying for days now.

“Smart ass,” Jack grumbled as he swiped it into his own hand. “You’ve been waiting for years to get back at me for that.”

“Yep,” Daniel agreed with a sunny smile.

As for the bio-toxic underwear… Enkidu thoughtfully provided a robe he had lifted from someone, and a loin cloth that looked remarkably like the one he had been wearing in his memory of the afternoon he and Gilgamesh had found the Land of the Cedars. The garment with the easy-release feature.

“So, Daniel…” Jack said casually as the archeologist dialed Earth. “You still have those memories from Gil?”

“Actually, yes, I do. Getting a little dim, some of them…”

“You, ah, remember something about a bet and claiming the winnings… or something?”

“As a matter of fact, Jack, I do.”

“I… ah… remembered the oil…”

Daniel grinned. “Does that mean you did not wholly doubt me?”

“Something like that… or maybe I just didn’t care greatly. By the way… thanks for coming to rescue my ass.”

“It’s an ass *well* worth rescuing, Jack.” 

Å


End file.
